How we cite our quotes: Story Number.Paragraph
Quote #10
No matter how we keep from boasting about it, we must admit that we Jews are, after all, the best and the smartest people. As the Prophet says: Who can be compared to Israel? How can a goy compare himself to a Jew? A goy is a goy, and a Jew is a Jew, as you yourself say in your writings. You have to be born a Jew, blessed is the Jew. How lucky I was to be born a Jew and know the taste of exile and of always wandering, never sleeping where we spent the day. (10.25)
A pretty great insight here that the kind of cultural exceptionalism that is part of Jewish tradition (you know, all that stuff about how Jews are Jews and could never be like or become like Gentile) often goes hand in hand with exclusion (exile and being seen as not belonging). This is pretty much the problem of the Jewish identity in the early twentieth century, and was used to justify most of the atrocities committed again Jews.