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I am a Zionist, an ardent supporter of Israel, its defender when I deem Israel to be right and its critic when I deem it to be wrong.

Theodore Bikel

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Theodore Bikel
Age: 91 †
Born: 1924
Born: May 2
Died: 2015
Died: July 21
Actor
Businessperson
Film Actor
Musician
Politician
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Trade Unionist
Vienna
Austria
Theodore Meir Bikel
Wrong
Deem
Right
Zionist
Defenders
Ardent
Supporter
Critic
Critics
Israel
Defender

More quotes by Theodore Bikel

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You can't expect the entire world to come to New York to see you. You have to travel to them.
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You don't really need modernity in order to exist totally and fully. You need a mixture of modernity and tradition.
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Must we be put to shame by much smaller and poorer countries, by Ireland, France, Austria or Sweden, who have understood that a nation's support of its arts is a matter of both national pride and cultural survival?
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If I have one vanity wish, it would be to direct. It's the only thing I haven't done yet that I would like to.
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I am determined to give the Yiddish language a fighting chance to survive.
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You learn more from the flops than from the hits.
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No heirloom of humankind captures the past as do art and language.
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John Huston was the kind of director that totally left you alone. Not every actor always does it right, every time, but most of the time he was re-directing someone. He was making tight adjustments, and not even in terms of interpretation because he knew that by the time that the character had been filmed... well, he got it right when he cast you.
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I created the role of Captain Von Trapp.
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But there is a difference here: When Jewish children are murdered, Arabs celebrate the deed. The death of an Arab child is no cause for celebration in Israel.
Theodore Bikel
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On the stage you're there, it's live. There's a beginning, a middle, an end. When something is funny you hear it right away.
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While we all could agree that the Zionist ideal is alive and well, there is serious doubt whether the Zionist movement can be said to be an ongoing proposition, fragmented as its components are in ideology and in practice.
Theodore Bikel
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You always draw on your experiences with live audiences to know how to do comedy on films. You're working for a laugh that may or may not come six months later, but you're working in a vacuum at the time you are doing it.
Theodore Bikel
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I glory in the fact that a human being has multiple talents and exercises them all with a degree of integrity and artistic proficiency. That's what I do.
Theodore Bikel
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I always sang, I always acted, I always played.
Theodore Bikel
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In my world, history comes down to language and art. No one cares much about what battles were fought, who won them and who lost them - unless there is a painting, a play, a song or a poem that speaks of the event.
Theodore Bikel
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'Visiting Mr. Green' is a good play. I enjoy being in it, and I have a wonderful colleague, Aidan deSalaiz, to work with. Audiences like it a lot. What's not to like?
Theodore Bikel
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For I firmly believe that Jewish life, indeed any communal life, can only be organized according to democratic principles.
Theodore Bikel
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As an artist I have an even more abiding interest in the compact between the Arts and Government.
Theodore Bikel
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I remain convinced that I can be a true universalist only when I am a better Jew.
Theodore Bikel