I picked up a book a few months back while in Manchester called "The Uniqueness of Israel" by Lance Lambert. I am not familiar with Lambert but I always find anything about Israel fascinating so I got the book. It has been a very interesting read so far. It is split up into four parts- the uniqueness of the land, the uniqueness of the nation, the uniqueness of the city (Jerusalem), and the uniqueness of the Messiah. I have especially like the chapter called "All things are mortal but the Jew." This chapter details how God has preserved the Jewish people throughout all of history. There are two great quotes in this chapter I want to share. The first is from Mark Twain in 1899:
"If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people. and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also way out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world, all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?"
The second is from Leo Tolstoy around the same time as he wrote on "What is a Jew?":
"The question is not at all so odd as it seems. Let us see what peculiar kind of creature the Jew is, which all the rulers and all the nations, have together and separately abused and molested, oppressed and persecuted, trampled and butchered, burned and hanged, and, in spite of all this, is yet alive... the Jew is the emblem of eternity. He whom neither slaughter or torture of himself for years could destroy; he whom neither fire nor sword, nor inquisition was able to wipe from off the face of the earth; he who was the first to produce the oracles of God; he who has been for so long a time the guardian of prophecy, and who has transmitted it to the rest of the world- such a nation cannot be destroyed. The Jew is as everlasting as eternity itself."
