Reading Ruth Wisse:

An In-Depth Conversation on Her New Memoir, Free as a Jew

Watch Your “Reading Ruth” Broadcasts Here!

Streaming live on Tuesdays at 6:30 PM ET:
Nov. 30 | Dec. 7 | Dec. 14 | Dec. 21 | Jan. 4

Registrants will be emailed a link to each live lecture on the day of each session, with an additional reminder sent shortly before the stream begins.

Every lecture will also be recorded and sent to registrants within 36 hours of each lecture’s conclusion.

Caught between Nazis to her West and Soviet Communists to her East, Ruth Wisse—born Ruth Roskies—entered the world on the precipice of modern Europe’s moral abyss. After her family fled to Canada, she grew up among survivors of the Holocaust, Yiddish writers and intellectuals, and the youthful idealism of Zionist activists. She would go on to pioneer the field of Jewish Studies, teach generations of students at McGill and Harvard, and become a courageous defender of Israel and the Jewish people in the public arena.

Now, Wisse has written a memoir, Free as a Jew, mapping her stirring life and career onto the post-war intellectual and national life of the Jewish people. This online course will focus on a series of themes and questions raised by her memoir. How can Yiddish literature speak to contemporary Jews? What is the nature of Jewish civilization and its relationship to the Western inheritance? What problems plague the contemporary university and how do they affect Jews in particular?

The course will be guided by the Wall Street Journal‘s Edward Rothstein. Rothstein has been Critic-at-Large for the Wall Street Journal since 2015, writing about museums, reviewing exhibitions, and contributing essays on a variety of topics. He was previously Critic-at-Large for the New York Times and has served as Chief Music Critic of the New York Times and Music Critic for The New Republic.


1. Growing Up: A World Lost and Preserved

Tuesday, November 30, 2021 | 6:30 PM ET

In our first session, we’ll discuss chapters 1-5 of Free as a Jew, exploring Ruth Wisse’s family life and the history and tradition of Yiddish literature that her family conveyed to her as a young girl. This session will begin with a conversation with David Roskies, Professor Wisse’s brother, who has also written a memoir, Yiddishlands. He teaches Yiddish and Jewish Literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary and Yiddish Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Brother and sister both came to maturity as the world that shaped them was being destroyed, along with the language that they both loved. How did their own family experience affect their understanding of Jewish history and the literature to which they have both devoted themselves? What can we learn from this literature, and what is often misunderstood about it?

 

2. Intellectuals and the Jews

Tuesday, December 7, 2021 | 6:30 PM ET

In this session, we will cover chapters 9-12, and 15, discussing the Jew and intellectual life in America. Throughout Free as a Jew, Wisse attends to the history and debates that took place in the pages of Partisan Review, Commentary, and Dissent. Wisse herself entered as a combatant in these battles. In what ways did Jewish history, belief, and practice affect her interpretation of political issues? How “Jewish” are (or were) neoconservative ideas? And how different are they from those found in other strands of American conservative and liberal thought? We will be joined by American Enterprise Institute senior fellow, National Review contributing editor, and Commentary columnist Matthew Continetti, who is working on a history of American conservatism.

 

3. A Hatred Like No Other: Wisse on the Functions of Anti-Semitism

Tuesday, December 14, 2021 | 6:30 PM ET

Our third session will address a theme that runs throughout the book: the phenomenon of Jew-hatred. We will ask why it is different from all other forms of group hatred. What pathologies has it created? What are repeated patterns and possible explanations? What mutations has it undergone? How has Wisse herself characterized it? We will be joined by the distinguished novelist and critic, Cynthia Ozick, whose latest novel is Antiquities, to discuss these issues and explore how they have affected literature and life.

 

4. Live Jews and Dead Jews: Judaism and Culture

Tuesday, December 21, 2021 | 6:30 PM ET

In our fourth session, we will examine another theme that animates much of Wisse’s book: the effects of Jewish practice and belief on literature, culture, and politics. How does the internal life of the Jew create a different perspective on Western civilization? What are the consequences for Hebrew and Yiddish literature? We will be joined in conversation by award-winning novelist and critic Dara Horn, whose latest book is People Love Dead Jews, and who received a doctorate in comparative literature at Harvard, where she studied with Professor Wisse.

 

5. In the Arena

Tuesday, January 4, 2021 | 6:30 PM ET

In our final session, Professor Ruth Wisse will join us herself to touch on themes we haven’t yet addressed—such as the Jew in the university and the relationship between Israel and the Diaspora. We will discuss her vision of the past as she has shaped it in her memoir, her thoughts about the current moment, and her ideas about what might follow.