Synagogues Quotes & Sayings

I had already been a young singer. And once, as a profession, I was a young singer, what you would call a soprano in England, but I was an alto in singing Jewish music in bar mitzvahs and weddings and synagogues throughout New York City because, after Israel, New York is probably the biggest Jewish community in the world. — Charlemagne Palestine

Accordingly, it must and dare not be considered a trifling matter but a most serious one to seek counsel against this and to save our souls from the Jews, that is, from the devil and from eternal death. My advice, as I said earlier, is:
First, that their synagogues be burned down, and that all who are able toss in sulphur and pitch; it would be good if someone could also throw in some hellfire. That would demonstrate to God our serious resolve and be evidence to all the world that it was in ignorance that we tolerated such houses, in which the Jews have reviled God, our dear Creator and Father, and his Son most shamefully up till now but that we have now given them their due reward. — Martin Luther

In my philosophy, I think churches should not argue and be greedy with money. I think different churches like the synagogues, mosques, and Christian/Catholic churches should focus on bringing peace in the world and not compete. I know in today's world, people are defending one religion to another and try to show off. Has God, Jesus, or the disciples mentioned about competition in the Bible? I don't think so. Because if we compete, we turn to selfish needs and be greedy. So whatever religion you're in, have faith in it as much as you can and help others. Because in every religion I know, you have to give back the poor and have peace in your mind. — Simi Sunny

Revising institutional views about the synagogue Reinterpreting Jewish values Reimagining the venue of the synagogue By unshackling synagogues from leftover views about how they do their work, by creating stronger points of connection between Jewish values and the real life concerns of individuals, and by reimagining the synagogue as a venue where people are empowered to find and create community on their terms, synagogues may become places of greater vision, inspiration, and relevance. — Zachary I. Heller

If we are not able to bring the churches, the synagogues, [and] the mosques around to the animal rights view, we will never make large-scale progress for animal rights in the United States. — Norm Phelps

What shall we Christians do now with this depraved and damned people of the Jews? ... I will give my faithful advice: First, that one should set fire to their synagogues ... Then that one should also break down and destroy their houses ... That one should drive them out the country. — Martin Luther

5And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love x to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. y Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. — Anonymous

I find myself very drawn to the experience of church. I love to be in a surrounding that's so welcoming. People come shake your hand. That's not always the case in most synagogues I've been in. I also find more of an emphasis on how to live and grow as a person. And I have to say, I'm very inspired by Jesus. — David Gregory

Other humans believed the same way they breathed: it came natural to them. The world was filled with synagogues and churches, mosques and temples, shrines to Elron and Ogko. New faiths rose and fell like breath. They bred like flies. They died like species. — Lavie Tidhar

Where will Christian feminists go for spiritual nourishment if the church itself fails to reflect the feminism of Jesus? If tradition becomes a reason for churches, for synagogues, for mosques to refuse to change in the light of new insights and understandings, on what grounds can we expect change from other institutions? — Joan D. Chittister

The Jews sought refuge in their synagogues, but the Crusaders set them on fire. The Jews were burned alive, almost a climactic burnt offering in Christ's name. Godfrey of Bouillon took off his sword and with a small entourage circled the city and prayed, before making his way to the Holy Sepulchre. Next morning, to Tancred's fury, Raymond's men nervously climbed onto the roof of al-Aqsa, surprised the huddled Muslims and beheaded the men and women in another spasm of killing. Some of the Muslims leaped to their deaths. — Simon Sebag Montefiore

In monasteries, seminaries, retreats and synagogues, they fear hell and seek paradise. Those who know the mysteries of God never let that seed be planted in their souls. — Omar Khayyam

I don't know why we long so for permanence, why the fleeting nature of things so disturbs. With futility, we cling to the old wallet long after it has fallen apart. We visit and revisit the old neighborhood where we grew up, searching for the remembered grove of trees and the little fence. We clutch our old photographs. In our churches and synagogues and mosques, we pray to the everlasting and eternal. Yet, in every nook and cranny, nature screams at the top of her lungs that nothing lasts, that it is all passing away. All that we see around us, including our own bodies, is shifting and evaporating and one day will be gone. Where are the one billion people who lived and breathed in the year 1800, only two short centuries ago? — Alan Lightman

At the first Holocaust memorial commemoration in the Capitol Rotunda, both President Jimmy Carter and Vice President Mondale referred to the 'eleven million victims.' Carter also used Wiesenthal's figures of 'six million Jews and five million others' in his Executive Order establishing the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. I have attended Holocaust memorial commemorations in places as diverse as synagogues and army forts where eleven candles were lit. More significant is that strangers have repeatedly taken me and other colleagues to task for ignoring the five million non-Jews. When I explain that this is an invented concept, they become convinced of my ethnocentrism. — Deborah E. Lipstadt

When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 6But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. — Anonymous

My feet might fail me, my heart might ail me,
The synagogues of Satan might accuse or jail me,
Strip, crown, nail me, brimstone hail me ...
They might defeat the flesh but they could never ever kill me.
They might feel the music but could never ever feel me. — Jay Electronica

History and beauty lie in the baroque wrinkles of old cathedrals. mosques, synagogues, temples and faces whose stories are told without a single word. — Khang Kijarro Nguyen

My parents were practicing Jews. My mother grew up in an orthodox synagogue, and after my grandfather died, she went to a conservative synagogue and a little later ended up in a reform synagogue. My father was in reform synagogues from the beginning. — Judith Butler

If synagogues are attacked, this would give Jewish extremists an excuse to attack mosques. — Mohammed Dahlan

Babies aren't born knowing differences in color, gender, religions. They're taught those things. They're taught them at home. They're taught in the schools. They're taught in the churches. They're taught in the mosques, in the synagogues. — Geraldine Ferraro

They [rulers] must act like a good physician who, when gangrene has set in proceeds without mercy to cut, saw, and burn flesh, veins, bone, and marrow. Such a procedure must also be followed in this instance. Burn down their synagogues, forbid all that I enumerated earlier, force them to work, and deal harshly with them, as Moses did ... If this does not help we must drive them out like mad dogs. — Martin Luther

DO YOU believe," the disciple asked the rabbi, "that God created everything for a purpose?"
"I do," replied the rabbi.
"Well," asked the disciple, "why did God create atheists?"
The rabbi paused before giving an answer, and when he spoke his voice was soft and intense. "Sometimes we who believe, believe too much. We see the cruelty, the suffering, the injustice in the world and we say: 'This is the will of God.' We accept what we should not accept. That is when God sends us atheists to remind us that what passes for religion is not always religion. Sometimes what we accept in the name of God is what we should be fighting against in the name of God."
-Chief Rabbi Emeritus [of the United Synagogues of the British Commonwealth] Jonathan Sacks — Jonathan Sacks

The Peace Panda Says: Without The Heartfelt Prayer Of Love And Compassion ... Even The Greatest Of Temples, Mosques, Synagogues and Cathedrals Of Humanity Are Spiritually Dead. What is Humanity Without It's Spirit? — Timothy Pina

What shall we do with ... the Jews? ... set fire to their synagogues or schools and bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. — Martin Luther

Some of us worship in churches, some in synagogues, some on golf courses. — Adlai Stevenson I

The Qur'an had begun to develop a primitive just war theory. In the steppes, aggressive warfare was praiseworthy; but in the Qur'an, self-defense was the only possible justification for hostilities and the preemptive strike was condemned.5 War was always a terrible evil, but it was sometimes necessary in order to preserve decent values, such as freedom of worship. Even here, the Qur'an did not abandon its pluralism: synagogues and churches as well as mosques should be protected. The Muslims felt that they had suffered a fearful assault; their expulsion from Mecca was an act that had no justification. Exile from the tribe violated the deepest sanction of Arabia; it had attacked the core of the Muslims' identity. — Karen Armstrong

It is useless saying that we do not accept the gods of the primitive world. In form, no; in essence, yes. The fact before us is that all ideas of gods can be traced to the earliest stages of human history ... There is an unbroken line of descent linking the gods of the most primitive peoples to those of modern man. We reject the world of the savage; but we still, in our churches, mosques, synagogues and temples, perpetuate the theories he built upon that world. — Chapman Cohen

God is not the possession of any religion. If anything, religion can be a path away from God. God cannot be bound up inside churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples. Those are just community centers where people gather to hang out with their friends. God is no more to be found in those places than he is in rock clubs or back-alley bars. God is in the wilderness, and God is in the city. Everywhere you go God is there. God walks with you. God is you, and God is the very act of walking. — Brad Warner

Tzedakah is different than charity. Charity comes from the word charitus, which means heart. Tzedakah comes from the word tzedek, which means justice, so when you are giving tzedakah, you are not just making the world a better place by contributing to hospitals, synagogues, churches, or your favorite cause. You are in a position of bringing justice to the world, becoming as God-like as possible. — Celso Cukierkorn

But what will happen even if we do burn down the Jews synagogues and forbid them publicly to praise God, to pray, to teach, to utter God's name? They will still keep doing it in secret. If we know that they are doing this in secret, it is the same as if they were doing it publicly. for our knowledge of their secret doings and our toleration of them implies that they are not secret after all and thus our conscience is encumbered with it before God. — Martin Luther

I've liked being Jewish in America - there's a secular version of Jewishness there that's more about bagels and jokes than going to synagogues. — Beeban Kidron

Small business is the gateway to opportunity for those who want a piece of the American dream. [ ... ] Well, wouldn't it be nice to hear a little more about the forgotten heroes of America-those who create most of our new jobs, like the owners of stores down the street; the faithfuls who support our churches, synagogues, schools, and communities; the brave men and women everywhere who produce our goods, feed a hungry world, and keep our families warm while they invest in the future to build a better America? That's where miracles are made, not in Washington, D.C. — Ronald Reagan

I love the academy in terms of the life of the mind and the world of ideas. I also love the streets. I love the churches and mosques and synagogues. I love the trade union centers. I love the community centers. I speak regularly at prisons and so forth. — Cornel West

The synagogues of late antiquity and the early medieval period were built around imagery: imagery of remembering the Temple, but also of the celestial zodiac, too. — Simon Schama

If "atheophobia" denotes the violent criticism of atheism, I invite my Bible-thumping friends to sign up without fear for their safety. Don't reserve your insults to Reason for the privacy of those tombs of thought you call temples, churches, synagogues, and mosques! Publish newspapers and blogs, stage plays and puppet shows, to mock what you see as the absurdity of life without God, of life without your Supreme Blankie! — Charb

When you see the misogyny of hip-hop, it's so horrible, it's so putrid, it's so, you know, odious, that we know, we smell, we see it. The misogyny that is reified, that is reinforced, that is subtly reproduced in corporate America or in church life or in synagogues and temples and the like, is sometimes more subtly dealt with. — Michael Eric Dyson

I believe in Christianity, Judaism and Islamism, but I stay away from churches, synagogues and mosques. — Ted Lange

-a Jew had to have two synagogues. One that he went to, one that he rejected.
The Butcher's Theater — Jonathan Kellerman

It is difficult to understand the behavior of most German Protestants in the first Nazi years unless one is aware of two things: their history and the influence of Martin Luther.* The great founder of Protestantism was both a passionate anti-Semite and a ferocious believer in absolute obedience to political authority. He wanted Germany rid of the Jews and when they were sent away he advised that they be deprived of "all their cash and jewels and silver and gold" and, furthermore, "that their synagogues or schools be set on fire, that their houses be broken up and destroyed ... and they be put under a roof or stable, like the gypsies ... in misery and captivity as they incessantly lament and complain to God about us" - advice that was literally followed four centuries later by Hitler, Goering and Himmler. — William L. Shirer

In our own country, we have seen America pay a terrible price for any form of discrimination. And we have seen us grow stronger as we have steadily let more and more of our hatreds and our fears go, as we have given more and more of our people the chance to live their dreams. That is why the flame of our Statue of Liberty, like the Olympic flame carried all across America by thousands of citizen heroes, will always burn brighter than the fires that burn our churches, our synagogues, our mosques, always. — William J. Clinton

Are you looking for me?
I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against yours.
you will not find me in the stupas,
not in Indian shrine rooms,
nor in synagogues,
nor in cathedrals:
not in masses,
nor kirtans,
not in legs winding around your own neck,
nor in eating nothing but vegetables.
When you really look for me,
you will see me instantly
you will find me in the tiniest house of time.
Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath. — Kabir

There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia, — Newt Gingrich

Even today I am willing to volunteer to do the dirty work for Israel, to have everyone hate us, to pull the rug from underneath the feet of the Diaspora Jews, so that they will be forced to run to us crying. Even if it means blowing up one or two synagogues here and there, I don't care. — Ariel Sharon

the Temple was rebuilt, but by then the religion of Israel had been marked forever by the piety of the exile. Alongside the single Temple, where blood sacrifice was celebrated, arose numerous synagogues, places for meeting and for prayer, and the dominium of the priests yielded to the growing influence of the Pharisees and Scribes, men of the book and of study. In 70 A.D., the Roman legions again destroyed the Temple. But the learned rabbi Joahannah ben-Zakkaj, slipped covertly out of Jerusalem through the siege and obtained permission from Vespasian to continue the teaching of the Torah in the city of Jamnia. The temple has never been rebuilt since, and study, the Talmud, has become the real temple of Israel.24 This complex relationship to the Talmud is in fact a key to understanding the life and work of Mark Rothko. — Annie Cohen-Solal

I leave it to the faithful to burn each other's churches and mosques and synagogues, which they can be always relied upon to do — Christopher Hitchens

You see, people may tell you that Nazi Germany was built on anti-Semitism, a somewhat overzealous leader and a nation of hate-fed bigots, but it would have all come to nothing had the Germans not loved one particular activity - to burn.
The Germans loved to burn things. Shops, synagogues, Reichstags, houses, personal items, slain people and, of course, books. — Markus Zusak

Americans practice different faiths in churches, synagogues, mosques and temples. And many good people practice no faith at all. — George W. Bush

If it respected religion, Israel would have transferred these synagogues back to its territory. — Mohammed Dahlan

I argue that synagogue leaders have it backwards. Engaging individuals is what will lead them to affiliate with a synagogue as the institution that serves them, that meets their needs and those of their family. If synagogues continue to focus on the needs of the institution rather than on the needs of the individual, they will lose their dues-paying members and eventually become financially unviable. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel suggested to folks in the 1960s that they pray with their feet - and those prayers took them to places like the civil rights marches in Selma, Alabama. As a result of the actions of Rabbi Heschel and the influence of American political culture, American Jews - like most Americans - have been taught to vote with — Kerry M. Olitzky

There are many theological trappings of monotheistic religions that insist that we will never completely experience or know God as the most high of existential truth which insists that the closest we can hope to comprehend of Him is only through an emphatic rapturous recognition that transcends the mere human mind. Yet, this concept of understanding is a chronic symptom of an internal, subjective limitation of consciousness concluded and shared by the forefathers of our faiths which have, unwittingly, prejudiced and influenced our churches, synagogues' and mosques and should be questioned vigorously less we continue down the path of ineffective tribalism and spiritual division. — Jason Versey

I now attend non-orthodox synagogues, and study little during the secular week. — Luke Ford