American Judaism Workshops

Instructor: Ruth Wisse
Stipend: $750 (NYC area) and $1500 (non-NYC area)

About the Seminar

The Jew in America has enjoyed unprecedented success as an equal member of a free and democratic nation. Jews have risen in the arts, in politics, in business, and in much else. But they have also risen out of traditional life, first confronting modernity as aliens and then being swallowed in whole or in part by the rewards of assimilated American life.

It is this predicament—that of the anxious immigrant and the hesitant or guilty modern—that has colored the great works of American Jewish literature by authors such as Saul Bellow. Ruth Wisse, the dean of the study of Jewish literature, will explore what the Jewish novel can teach us about the modern Jewish-American condition.

American Ideas Papers

The American Judaism Workshops are meant to generate practical ideas to strengthen American Jewry, with participants leading the way. Each workshop participant will be asked to prepare and present his or her own concrete plan to address some of the great challenges and opportunities of American Jewish life. What can be done to secure the moral, intellectual, spiritual, political, religious, or demographic vitality of the Jewish people in America? What is your best idea?