what is the significance of these two quotes?

"As we approached the church I started to shake and sweat, and just before we reached the church doorway, I stepped out of line. I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t go inside that church. In my heart, I was still a Jew. I had done some wrong things in my life, but I was still my parents’ child." (158)

and

"Rachel Deborah Shilsky could drive a car and pull a trailer behind it, but Ruth McBride Jordan had never touched a steering wheel before that day in 1973, and you can make book on it." (168)