"Once Jews no longer obeyed the imperatives of their religion, they were virtually obliged to create new forms of identity, turning accommodation from means to end. Literature was a proving ground for the reinvention of the self. One-tenth of the Nobel Prize winners for literature in the twentieth century were born Jews, but only two of them-Shmuel Yosef Agnon (1966) and Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978)-wrote in a Jewish language and only about half thought of themselves as Jews."
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Ruth Wisse The Modern Jewish Canon (2000)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Shmuel_Yosef_Agnon
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Shmuel Yosef Agnon
(July 17, 1888 – February 17, 1970) was a Nobel Prize writer and was one of the central figures of fiction.
4 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Shmuel Yosef Agnon →
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