Jewish Buddhist Quote.

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Naomi Alderman quoting and reviewing Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander in The Guardian Weekly (27.04.12).

” ‘Adolf Hitler was the last century’s greatest what?…Optimist… That’s why he was the biggest monster…Full of hope, the Fuhrer was.  A dreamer! A romantic even, yes! If I just kill this one, gas that one, everything will be OK…Pessimists don’t build gas chambers.’

“This is of course a very Jewish way of phrasing a central insight of Buddhism.  Pain cannot be avoided, but suffering can, because suffering is what happens when we imagine we can avoid pain.”

One other quote from the article: “It constantly surprises my non-Jewish friends that I don’t feel, as they do that the [Holocaust]is in the past.   That I wonder if they’d hide me if the economy went really bad and people started voting for Nick Griffin.”

Shalom Auslander’s website

Naomi Alderman website

 

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