..."This way Dickens thought was the way mankind treated the Jew until the last greatest miracle of mankind: the United States in the modern world. In this world, we get to eat at the same tables as everyone else, to listen to the same music, to be equal in every way. In this world, I get to fly on a plane and the man next to me, named Petersen, treats me courteously. So does the flight attendant. So do the pilots, who invited me to the cockpit to gossip about the world. So will the people at DFW and the people at The Mansion hotel in Dallas.

"In America, we get treated with dignity. We are, as Martin Luther King's dream went, judged by the content of our character -- no, better than that -- not by the prayers we say at night or who our ancestors were.

"This is a miracle. In all history, it's a miracle beyond telling. This is the central fact of my existence. This is the central fact of all human existence: that in America, people respect each other despite race, religion, sex, age, despite all conditions of birth and heritage. This is a MIRACLE!

"If we don't realize it, if we are not on our hands and knees with gratitude about it, we are insane. And if I do not feel grateful about my life, about the way I live as a Jew and an American, or as an American and a Jew, I am pitiful and lost."...