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Book: People of the Book
Quotes of Book: People of the Book

Geraldine Brooks _ People of the Book
Do not mind my rough old tongue. I have grown too bent with age for any further bowing.
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Geraldine Brooks _ People of the Book
Well, you must rest, later. You need to be refreshed to greet the Bride Shabbat." She smiled. For a husband and wife to make love on the Sabbath was a commandment, and it was one requirement of the faith that both of them observed with joy.
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Geraldine Brooks _ People of the Book
She beckoned me to follow her, and we passed from the portico into rooms whose magnificence has stolen the words from the mouths of the poets.
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Geraldine Brooks _ People of the Book
The king and queen are preparing an expulsion order-" David sucked in his breath. "Yes, even as we have feared. They have taken the capitulation of Granada as a sign of divine will that Spain be a Christian country. It is, then, their intention to thank God for their victory by declaring Spain a land where no Jew may remain. The choice is to convert, or depart. They have hatched this plan in secret, but finally the queen has confided it to her old friend Don Seneor." "But how could the king and queen do such a thing as this? It is Jewish money-or at least Jewish money raising-that has secured them the victory over the Moors!" "We have been milked, my brother. And now, like a dry cow, we are to be dispatched to the slaughterhouse.
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Geraldine Brooks _ People of the Book
Every Jew, and every converso, knew that the Inquisition was as much about filling the royal purse as purifying the Spanish church. For payment of a rapacious fine, most prisoners could walk-or hobble, or be borne on a litter, depending on how long they had been held-from the doors of the Casa Santa.
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Geraldine Brooks _ People of the Book
When the sun had set and darkness sheltered her from the eyes of the curious, Ruth Ben Shoushan walked into the sea, the nameless infant tight against her breast, until she stood waist-deep. She unwrapped him, throwing the swaddling cloth over her head. His brown eyes blinked at her, and his small fists, free of constriction, punched at the air. "Sorry, my little one," she said gently, and then thrust him under the dark surface. The water closed around him, touching every inch of his flesh. She had a firm grip around his upper arm. She let go. The water had to take him. She looked down at the small, struggling form, her face determined, even as she sobbed. The swell rose and slapped against her. The tug of the receding wave was about to pull the infant away. Ruti reached out and grasped him firmly in her two hands. As she lifted him from the sea, water sluiced off his bare, shining skin in a shower of brightness. She held him up to the stars. The roar in her head was louder now than the surf. She cried out, into the wind, speaking the words for the infant in her hands. "Shema Yisrael, Adonai eloheinu, Adonai echad." Then she drew the cloth from her head and wrapped the baby. All over Aragon that night, Jews were being forced to the baptismal font, driven to conversion by fear of exile. Ruti, exultant, defiant, had made a Gentile into a Jew. Because his mother was not Jewish, a ritual immersion had been necessary. And now it was done.
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Geraldine Brooks _ People of the Book
It was a lengthy text, setting out the perfidies of the Jews and the insufficiency of measures so far taken to stop their corruption of Christian belief. "Therefore we command…all Jews and Jewesses, of whatever age they may be, that live, reside, and dwell in our said kingdoms and dominions…by the end of the month of July next, of the present year 1492, they depart from our said kingdoms…and that they not presume to return to, or reside therein, or they shall incur the penalty of death." Jews were not to leave with gold or silver or gems; they had to pay all outstanding debts but were not in a position to collect any monies owed to them.
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Geraldine Brooks _ People of the Book
who they were, or how they worked. That's how I add my few grains to the sandbox of human knowledge. It's what I love best about what I do. And there were so many
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Geraldine Brooks _ People of the Book
This is the cathedral. Neo-Gothic. They had midnight Mass there last Christmas, but they held it at noon because, of course, no one went out at night at that time unless they were suicidal. On its left you see the synagogue and the mosque. On the right the Orthodox church. All the places where none of us go to worship, situated within a very convenient hundred meters of one another.
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Geraldine Brooks _ People of the Book
A sofer must fill his mind with only the holy letters. He could not be distracted by daily things. "Leshem ketivah haggadah shel Pesach," he whispered to himself again, trying to quiet his mind. His hand formed the letter shin- the letter of reason. What reason could there be in this constant fighting with the Moors? Had not the Muslims, Jews, and Christians shared these lands in contentment-in convivencia-for hundreds of years? What was the saying? Christians raise the armies, Muslims raise the buildings, Jews raise the money.
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Geraldine Brooks _ People of the Book
Suicide and sexual diseases. Two great killers of the Viennese, from the highest born to the lowest.
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Geraldine Brooks _ People of the Book
Who would have thought that a single suicide-or a double suicide, more properly-could put an entire city in a sour temper? Vienna valued its suicides, especially those that were dramatic, conducted with some flourish-like the young woman who had decked herself in full bridal regalia before flinging herself from a speeding train, or the circus artist who, in the midst of his performance, had cast away his pole and leaped from the high wire to his death. The audience had applauded, because he jumped with such verve that all believed it was part of his act. It was only as the blood began to pool under his shattered body that the cheers turned to gasps and the women turned their faces away, understanding that this man had added another digit to a suicide rate already the highest in Europe.
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