Tag #130186 - Interview #78421 (Gavril Marcuson)

I never denied my identity. Against people’s advice, I never changed my name of got baptized. There’s no point in denying one’s identity. If a Jew denies being a Jew, there will always be someone who will remind him! I have come to the conviction that Jews represent not only a religion, but also an ethnic group. Leaving aside the Mosaic faith, there is also a Jewish ethnic group, just like there’s a Hungarian, or a German, or a Bulgarian ethnic group. A Jewish baby is a rich being from the very moment it’s conceived in its mother’s womb. Being a Jew is a lucky thing. Jews cannot be compared to anyone. Of course, any nation could claim it cannot be compared to any other, but the Jewish history is really unique. The Jewish history begins 14 centuries before Christ and it is extraordinary. Jews survived thanks to their rabbis and their religion – it’s religion that prevented them from becoming extinct. Hebrew is the only classic language that could be reborn. Attempts were made in Europe to revive Latin – the French founded the ‘Le latin vivant’ [‘Living Latin’] Society, published magazines, but failed. The Greeks tried to resurrect the old Attic language, but failed. The Greeks of today still speak Demotic, the colloquial Greek language. The only ancient language that managed to survive and is now spoken by millions of Jews from Israel is Hebrew. Any pupil in Israel can now read the Old Testament in original, in Hebrew. And this is something extraordinary!