“Our historical bequest is sublime. I have inherited a fragmented but highly creativeexile and, since 1948, a home. I don’t know that I want to settle there. I prefer thecreative spur of exile. () But wherever I am I shall be Jewish, and that sound willinform every syllable I write. I am blessed with a long ancestry of wisdom, prophecy,and promise, a line of overwhelming creative achievements, courage, humor, and,above all, a dogged and chronic permanence, the greatest legacy of all.”