This is a list of Jewish Heritage Month quotes.
Jewish Heritage Month quotes are sayings that you can use to honor the Jewish community during the month of May. The purpose of these messages is to acknowledge the achievements and struggles of the Jewish people and to celebrate the identity of Jewish team members.
Sharing these sayings is a way to celebrate Jewish Heritage Month at work and can double as a virtual diversity and inclusion activity. These sentiments are a subset of motivational phrases for the office.
This list includes:
- Jewish quotes about kindness
- Jewish quotes about community
- funny Jewish quotes
- Jewish quotes about hope
- quotes by famous Jewish figures
- Jewish quotes about life
- Jewish pride quotes
- Jewish proverbs
Let’s get started.
Jewish quotes about kindness
- “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” – Anne Frank
- “Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.” – Golda Meir
- “I lived, while 1 1/2 million Jewish children died. So I have an obligation to repair the world.” – Ruth Westheimer
- “Let the Good in me connect with the good in others, until the world is transformed through the compelling power of love.” – Rabbi Nachman of Breslov
- “The highest form of wisdom is kindness.” – from the Talmud
- “Every act of forgiveness mends something broken in this fractured world. It is a step, however small, in the long, hard journey to redemption.” – Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
- “Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately.” – Elie Wiesel
- “To be kind is more important than to be right. Many times what people need is not a brilliant mind that speaks but a special heart that listens.” – Rabbi Menachem Mendel
- “When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.” – Abraham Joshua Heschel
- “One of the very first lessons of the Torah gives it a place of high priority: All human beings are created equal. This belief in equality compels action in response to discrimination, racism, and racial injustice.” – Rabbi Dr. Laura Novak Winer
- “Everybody, every human being has the obligation to contribute somehow to this world.” – Edith Carter
Jewish quotes about community
- “I grew up in a tradition where having ideas and contributing to the community and creating art that had an impact on the world mattered. That’s part of the Jewish tradition.” – Eve Ensler
- “To be a Jew, essentially and not just accidentally, is to regard the Jewish people as one’s sole primal community. Election by the unique God requires total and unconditional loyalty to one people.” – David Novak
- “The Jewish community has always taken care of its own.” – Lee Whitnum
- “There is never a Jewish community without its scholars, but where Jews may not be both intellectuals and Jews, they prefer to remain Jews.” – Mary Antin
- “When there’s an emerging social issue that needs greater attention by the Jewish community, that’s where I am.” – Nina Beth Cardin
- “There is a wide range of views within the Jewish community, so it is not monolithic.” – Barack Obama
- “Join the community: the wolf snatches only the stray sheep that wanders off from the flock.” – Jewish Proverb
- “The community is Isreal’s rampart.” – Jewish Proverb
- “The people of Isreal compose a single soul. Only the bodies are separate.” – Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi
- “A candle is a small thing. But one candle can light another. And see how its own light increases. As a candle gives its flame to the other, you are such a light.” – Moshe Davis
- “Community is society with a human face.” – Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
Funny Jewish quotes
- “A summary of every Jewish holiday: They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat!” – Alan King
- “Hey, I may loathe myself, but it has nothing to do with the fact that I’m Jewish.” – Larry David
- “For a Jewish guy, I’ve recorded a lot of Christmas albums.” – Barry Manilow
- “Everyone complains about a lack of money, but none complain about a lack of brains.” – Jewish Proverb
- “Please accept my resignation. I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.” – Groucho Marx
- “Anytime a person goes into a delicatessen and orders a pastrami on white bread, somewhere a Jew dies.” – Milton Berle
- “Even a secret agent can’t lie to a Jewish Mother.” – Peter Malkin
- “Worries go down better with soup than without.” – Jewish Proverb
- “If you look at a group of people that had faith, it’s got to be the Jews. They followed Moses through the desert for 40 years with no map. There had to be one guy in the back, like, ‘I don’t think he knows where he’s going.'” – Adam Ferrara
- “Well, I just said that Jesus and I were both Jewish and that neither of us ever had a job, we never had a home, we never married and we traveled around the countryside irritating people.” – Kinky Friedman
- “Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.” – Jerry Seinfeld
- “As long as the world is turning and spinning, we’re gonna be dizzy and we’re gonna make mistakes.” – Mel Brooks
- “I was born in New York City, but I was raised in New Jersey, part of the great Jewish emigration of 1963.” – Jon Stewart
- “Why do Jewish men die before their wives? They want to.” – Henny Youngman
- “I’m Jewish. I don’t work out. If God had wanted us to bend over, He would have put diamonds on the floor.” – Joan Rivers
Jewish quotes about hope
- “Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.” – Anne Frank
- “Jews survived all the defeats, expulsions, persecutions and pogroms, the centuries in which they were regarded as a pariah people, even the Holocaust itself, because they never gave up the faith that one day they would be free to live as Jews without fear.” – Jonathan Sac
- “This is the story of a people which was scattered over all the world and yet remained a single family, a nation which time and again was doomed to destruction and yet, out of the ruins, rose to new life.” – Abba Kovner
- “We can endure much more than we think we can; all human experience testifies to that.” – Rabbi Harold S. Kushner
- “Whenever feeling downcast, each person should vitally remember, ‘For my sake, the entire world was created.'” – Baal Shem Tov
- “The idea that it’s possible to move from slavery to freedom and from darkness to light and from despair to hope – that’s the greatest Jewish story ever told.” – Rabbi Sharon Brous
- “Life is a tragedy full of joy.” – Bernard Malamud
- “Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.” – Allen Ginsberg
- “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor Frankl
- “You have to have faith, fantasy, hope, drive, determination, and the belief that tomorrow will be better.” – Magda Brown
- “We are alive. We are human, with good and bad in us. That’s all we know for sure. We can’t create a new species or a new world. That’s been done. Now we have to live within those boundaries. What are our choices? We can despair and curse, and change nothing. We can choose evil like our enemies have done and create a world based on hate. Or we can try to make things better.” – Carol Matas
- “The past is not easy to forget, and I do not want to forget. The past lives in me. I don’t live in the past.” – Olga Horak
Quotes by famous Jewish figures
- “Human greatness does not lie in wealth or power, but in character and goodness. People are just people, and all people have faults and shortcomings, but all of us are born with a basic goodness.” – Anne Frank
- “Honestly, what can really be said about ‘the Jewish people’ as a whole? Is it not a lamentable stereotype to make large generalizations about all Jews, and to presume they all share the same political commitments?” – Judith Butler
- “For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do nothing.” – Simon Wiesenthal
- “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” – Albert Einstein
- “One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.” – Golda Meir
- “Whatever you choose to do, leave tracks. That means don’t do it just for yourself. You will want to leave the world a little better for your having lived.” – Ruth Bader Ginsberg
- “He who cannot accept reproof cannot become great.” – Nachman of Breslov
- “Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.” – Franz Kafka
- “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” – Elie Wiesel
- “When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves.” – Viktor E. Frankl
- “All good ideas start out as bad ideas, that’s why it takes so long.” – Steven Spielberg
- “Freedom is won, not on the battlefield, nor in the political arena, but in human imagination and will. To defend a land, you need an army. But to defend freedom, you need education.” – Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
Jewish quotes about life
- “Every year during their High Holy Days, the Jewish community reminds us all of our need for repentance and forgiveness.” – Billy Graham
- “In Jewish history there are no coincidences.” – Elie Wiesel
- “Jews, black people – any people who are hated or who have suffered, either as individuals or as a people – use humour. It is a survival skill.” – Sarah Silverman
- “To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.” – Leonard Bernstein
- “An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.” – Victor Frankl
- “A righteous man falls down seven times and gets up.” – King Solomon
- “This is one of the goals of the Jewish way of living: to experience commonplace deeds as spiritual adventures, to feel the hidden love and wisdom in all things.” – Abraham Joshua Heschel
- “If you are not a better person tomorrow than you are today, what need have you for a tomorrow?” – Rabbi Nachman of Breslov
- “Humor is the weapon of unarmed people. It helps people who are oppressed to smile at the situation that pains them.” – Simon Wisenthal
- “Don’t be afraid of discovering that the ‘real you’ may be different than the ‘current you.'” – Rabbi Noah Weinberg
- “Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but, above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.” – Yehuda Bauer
Jewish pride quotes
- “Sometimes people who are Jewish are held to a higher standard which sometimes we take great pride in.” – Gary Ackerman
- “I’d like it if people thought I was Jewish looking.” – Natalie Portman
- “Though I am not religious in the least, I am very proud to be Jewish.” – Daniel Radcliffe
- “I marvel at the resilience of the Jewish people. Their best characteristic is their desire to remember. No other people has such an obsession with memory.” – Elie Wiesel
- “To be Jewish is to be specifically identified with a history. And if you’re not aware of that when you’re a child, the whole tradition is lost.” – Joyce Carol Oates
- “I’m proud of my Jewish heritage. And for me it’s not just about religion. It’s about community and culture as well.’ – Julian Edelman
- “Anti-Jewish racism has risen, but so has Jewish Pride. We will reject their attempts fto shame us. We will reject their hate and instead turn towards love.” – Ben M Freeman
- “I have enormous pride in the survival of the Jewish people, the cultural heritage of the Jewish people, but I’m not observant, and I don’t belong to a synagogue. I don’t go to temple on high holy days, but I’m proud to be Jewish.” – Erica Jong
- “I’m a Jew. I’m fascinated by our culture and our history, by what made us the people we are. It influences every breath I take. It informs and guides me. Without it, I’d just be a vacuum.” – Mandy Patinkin
- “The Jewish religion is an ethical religion. That is, we are taught to do right, to love mercy, do justice, not because there’s gonna be any reward in heaven or punishment in hell. We live righteously because that’s how people should live.” – Ruth Bader Ginsburg
- “To be a Jew is a destiny.” – Vicki Baum
Jewish Proverbs
- Hope for a miracle, but don’t rely on it.
- If things are not as you wish, wish them as they are.
- “Gam zu l’tova. This too is for the good.”
- He that can’t endure the bad, will not live to see the good.
- Do not be wise in words – be wise in deeds.
- First mend yourself, and then mend others.
- As you teach, you learn.
- Whoever does not try, does not learn.
- Sympathy doesn’t provide food, but it makes hunger more endurable.
- Never trust the man who tells you all his troubles but keeps from you all his joys.
- Among those who laugh, do not weep; among those who weep, do not laugh.
- A pessimist, confronted with two bad choices, chooses both.
- Prepare your proof before you argue.
- If charity cost nothing, the world would be full of philanthropists.
- Hard work builds strong character.
- Don’t look for more honor than your learning merits.
- You don’t need intelligence to have luck, but you do need luck to have intelligence.
- Not to have felt pain is not to have been human.
- Pride joined with many virtues chokes them all.
Conclusion
Sharing quotes and proverbs is an easy way to observe Jewish Heritage Month at work. These sayings can educate team members about the achievements and experiences of the Jewish community and can help Jewish employees feel a sense of pride in their heritage and feel welcome in the workplace.
For more impactful messages, check out quotes for Arab American Heritage Month and Disability Awareness Month quotes.
