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Treasury of Jewish Quotations
The paperback book is in great condition. Pages are clean, though slightly tanned. Binding is tight. The cover shows some shelf wear, some discoloration and insignificant creases. We carefully wrap and ship your book within 24 hours of order. (j3)
- GenresJewish
672 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
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About the author
Leo Rosten
51 books43 followersLeo Calvin Rosten was born in Lodz, Russian Empire (now Poland) and died in New York City. He was a teacher and academic, but is best known as a humorist in the fields of scriptwriting, storywriting, journalism and Yiddish lexicography.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 21, 2025
Leo, like most translators, spends several chapters complaining how hard translation is. But perhaps they get more hate mail than other authors.
For centuries, the Jews had three very real fears: extermination of their tribe, extermination of their religion, and destruction of their books. And these fears are fully represented in their proverbs. The emphasis on education is 100% clear.
Many of the proverbs praise charity, which is right and proper. Yet other stigmatise poverty and begging in ways that show no charity at all. The proverbs are ambivalent about wives and positively scathing about mothers-in-law, but I guess it's the same in every culture. Some proverbs condemn abstinence in a way that would be unthinkable among Christians.
Sometimes I wonder. Most Christian sects and many other minorities have suffered persecution at some point, and some were totally destroyed. Did the Jews really suffer more, or have they simply been around longer and kept better records?
Leo's smugness about the superiority of Jewish culture is rather annoying, and not always historically accurate. He accepts the Biblical size of the Kingdom of David at face value, which few modern historians would endorse. And he carefully avoids any mention of Palestinians, using the word "Palestine" purely in a geographical sense as the Jewish homeland. He glosses over the fact that the Jews of modern Europe were a very different people from the Jews of Moses, yet he cannot conceal the fact that attitudes to liturgical music have been turned on their head. The Jewish philosophers who had greatest influence on Western thought were misfits, renegades and outright heretics (Spinoza, Maimonides, Philo, Josephus), but he doesn't really go into that.
Leo emphasises that Rabbis are not priests, and yet the word "priest" often appears in the proverbs.
For centuries, the Jews had three very real fears: extermination of their tribe, extermination of their religion, and destruction of their books. And these fears are fully represented in their proverbs. The emphasis on education is 100% clear.
Many of the proverbs praise charity, which is right and proper. Yet other stigmatise poverty and begging in ways that show no charity at all. The proverbs are ambivalent about wives and positively scathing about mothers-in-law, but I guess it's the same in every culture. Some proverbs condemn abstinence in a way that would be unthinkable among Christians.
Sometimes I wonder. Most Christian sects and many other minorities have suffered persecution at some point, and some were totally destroyed. Did the Jews really suffer more, or have they simply been around longer and kept better records?
Leo's smugness about the superiority of Jewish culture is rather annoying, and not always historically accurate. He accepts the Biblical size of the Kingdom of David at face value, which few modern historians would endorse. And he carefully avoids any mention of Palestinians, using the word "Palestine" purely in a geographical sense as the Jewish homeland. He glosses over the fact that the Jews of modern Europe were a very different people from the Jews of Moses, yet he cannot conceal the fact that attitudes to liturgical music have been turned on their head. The Jewish philosophers who had greatest influence on Western thought were misfits, renegades and outright heretics (Spinoza, Maimonides, Philo, Josephus), but he doesn't really go into that.
Leo emphasises that Rabbis are not priests, and yet the word "priest" often appears in the proverbs.
January 6, 2023
Exhaustive collection of Jewish wisdom excellently organized alphabetically by topic from Ability to Zohar. Annotated with source and attribution of authors of quote. Sources include but not limited to Torah, Talmud, Midrash, Rabbis, Moses ben Maimon, Nachman of Bratslav, Shalom Aleichem...
Very well indexed with table of contents.
An anthology guaranteed to warm your heart, make you grin and nod your head in agreement.
Very well indexed with table of contents.
An anthology guaranteed to warm your heart, make you grin and nod your head in agreement.
July 15, 2018
No one reads this from cover to cover - but, if you're like me, you put it some place where you can just pick it up from time to time and get a little wisdom or an ironic laugh. Actually, I read most of it when I was in my early 20s, then lost the book when moving, so I just re-bought it and am re-enjoying it. And I'm goyim!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews