If I had been prime minister, I would have offered apologies to the Dutch Jewish community without hesitation. This would refer both to our government's attitude during the Second World War and to the very late postwar discovery that the restitution process had been poorly conceived.
The Jewish community is all about love and family, which is the most important thing in my life, too.
As a child, I personally didn't really get to know any Jews. I was eight years old when the Night of Broken Glass happened. And Ludwigshafen was purely a workers' city, so we didn't have a very big Jewish community. What I did know about the Jews, I heard from my mother. My mother was very much pro-Jewish.
I have very distinct memories about growing up as part of what was then a very small Jewish community in Buffalo Grove, IL.
I am extremely respectful of the Jewish community. You know, I am Christian. I think of Jews as my older brothers. I mean, there wouldn't be Christianity without the Jewish religion. There is a direct connection between the two of them.
I guess everything having to do with your background has some influence on how you tell stories but it's hard to parse how growing up in a Jewish community in Minnesota really affected it.
Jewish immigration in the 20th century was fueled by the Holocaust, which destroyed most of the European Jewish community. The migration made the United States the home of the largest Jewish population in the world.
In fact, 37 percent of all United States Nobel Prize winners in the 20th century have been representatives of the Jewish community.
I grew very skeptical of certain kind of Jewish separatism in my youth. I mean, I saw the Jewish community was always with each other; they didn't trust anybody outside. You'd bring someone home, and the first question was, 'Are they Jewish, are they not Jewish?'
Working with the Jewish community is essential to me and what I stand for.
