Political Quotes

“Thank you. And I want to thank my colleague Debbie Wasserman Schultz for having us together to talk about Jewish American Heritage Month this evening. It's important for us to do that. Whenever we think of perfecting our union--the President spoke about this a little bit today as he hosted a number of individuals in the Jewish community and people from around the country. The thing that I always think about is tikkun olam, because it is part of our tradition to repair the world. Many Jewish people came to the United States having left a community in which they weren't able to make contributions, and I think that's partly why in bringing some talents and some skills--and, yes, in many cases they weren't skills that were honed very well when they first came to this country, but they developed those. And in developing those skills and making a contribution and becoming treasures for each of their communities, they clearly made a great deal of effort to repair the world. They continue to do that in so many ways. There is another tradition that we have. It's called tzedakah. It's about caring for others. It's about giving to others. It's about engaging people in that effort. It's about going down to soup kitchens from time to time. It's about bringing homeless people into your synagogue or into your temple during the winter. It's about engaging all the time because we know that that's important to do.…”