Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
''emerita''. She is a noted scholar of
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...
literature and of Jewish history and culture.
Background and family
Wisse was born into a
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
family in
Czernowitz
Chernivtsi ( uk, Чернівці́}, ; ro, Cernăuți, ; see also other names) is a city in the historical region of Bukovina, which is now divided along the borders of Romania and Ukraine, including this city, which is situated on the up ...
in what is today
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inva ...
, but was then part of
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
. She grew up in
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, and in 1969 her
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to:
* Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification
Entertainment
* '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series
* '' Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic
* Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group
** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...
from
McGill University
McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Univer ...
. She is the sister of
David Roskies
David G. Roskies (Yiddish: דוד ראָסקיס; born 1948, Montreal) is an internationally recognized Canadian literary scholar, cultural historian and author in the field of Yiddish literature and the culture of Eastern European Jewry. He is th ...
, professor of Yiddish and
Jewish literature
Jewish literature includes works written by Jews on Jewish themes, literary works written in Jewish languages on various themes, and literary works in any language written by Jewish writers. Ancient Jewish literature includes Biblical literature ...
Wisse, whose doctorate was in literature, is described by literary scholar Edward Alexander as one of a group of scholars who earned PhDs in English literature in the 1960s, but moved into Jewish Studies in the 1970s and 1980s, applying the modern critical methods of literary scholarship to Yiddish and Hebrew texts. Wisse describes
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow (born Solomon Bellows; 10 July 1915 – 5 April 2005) was a Canadian-born American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only w ...
as her favorite English-language novelist.
Wisse has taught at
McGill McGill is a surname of Scottish and Irish origin, from which the names of many places and organizations are derived. It may refer to:
People
* McGill (surname) (including a list of individuals with the surname)
* McGill family (Monrovia), a promin ...
,
Stanford
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. S ...
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
and
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the ...
universities. While teaching at McGill she developed a "pioneering" graduate program in Jewish studies". She left McGill to teach at Harvard in January 1993.
According to one critic, Wisse's work has been characterized "by the sharpness of her insight, by her unwillingness to retreat from a skirmish and by the inability of even those who disagree with her to deny her brilliance." She won the 1988 Itzik Manger Prize for Yiddish literature. She received one of the 2007
National Humanities Medal
The National Humanities Medal is an American award that annually recognizes several individuals, groups, or institutions for work that has "deepened the nation's understanding of the humanities, broadened our citizens' engagement with the human ...
s. The award cited her for "scholarship and teaching that have illuminated Jewish literary traditions. Her insightful writings have enriched our understanding of
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...
literature and Jewish culture in the modern world."
She is a member of the Editorial Board of the ''
Jewish Review of Books
The ''Jewish Review of Books'' is a quarterly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs from a Jewish perspective. It is published in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
The magazine was launched in 2010 with an editorial board that ...
'' and a frequent contributor to ''
Commentary
Commentary or commentaries may refer to:
Publications
* ''Commentary'' (magazine), a U.S. public affairs journal, founded in 1945 and formerly published by the American Jewish Committee
* Caesar's Commentaries (disambiguation), a number of works ...
''. She dedicated her last book, ''Jews and Power'', to the editor,
Neal Kozodoy
Neal Kozodoy is an American writer, journalist and editor.
Kozodoy joined the staff of '' Commentary'' in 1966 and served as editor from 1995 to 2009. He continues as editor-at-large.
According to Peter Wehner writing in the ''National Review'', ...
.
Yiddish literature
Joyce Carol Oates described ''The Best Of Sholem Aleichem'', a collection of short stories by
Sholem Aleichem
)
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Pereiaslav, Russian Empire
, death_date =
, death_place = New York City, U.S.
, occupation = Writer
, nationality =
, period =
, genre = Novels, sh ...
which Wisse edited with
Irving Howe
Irving Howe (; June 11, 1920 – May 5, 1993) was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Early years
Howe was born as Irving Horenstein in The Bronx, New York. He was the son of ...
as, "Like all good anthologies... more than simply a heterogeneous collection of pieces linked by common theme or author: it is also a statement, an argument, an attempt at redefinition."
Schlemiel
''The Schlemiel as a Modern Hero'', Wisse's first book, a rewriting of her doctoral dissertation "in a vigorously fresh and witty style," is about the
schlemiel
Schlemiel ( yi, שלומיאל; sometimes spelled shlemiel or shlumiel) is a Yiddish term meaning "inept/incompetent person" or "fool". It is a common archetype in Jewish humor, and so-called "''schlemiel'' jokes" depict the ''schlemiel'' falling i ...
as both a type and a literary genre with its origins in the Yiddish literature in the period of
Jewish emancipation
Jewish emancipation was the process in various nations in Europe of eliminating Jewish disabilities, e.g. Jewish quotas, to which European Jews were then subject, and the recognition of Jews as entitled to equality and citizenship rights. It in ...
neoconservative
Neoconservatism is a political movement that began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and count ...
.
She has angered feminists by arguing in favor of traditional marriage and gender roles, condemned Jewish participation in
Communism
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a ...
and has highlighted Jewish culpability for its crimes. Wisse's criticism of the
women's liberation movement
The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism that emerged in the late 1960s and continued into the 1980s primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which effected great ...
as a form of
neo-Marxism
Neo-Marxism is a Marxism, Marxist school of thought encompassing 20th-century approaches that amend or extend Marxism and Marxist philosophy, Marxist theory, typically by incorporating elements from other intellectual traditions such as critical t ...
has been extensively cited by critics of radical feminist politics. She wrote:
"Most of all," according to a May 2014 profile in ''
The Forward
''The Forward'' ( yi, פֿאָרווערטס, Forverts), formerly known as ''The Jewish Daily Forward'', is an American news media organization for a Jewish American audience. Founded in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily socialist newspaper, ...
'', Wisse has been "one of the most forceful conservative voices in support of Israel, arguing that criticism of the state repeats ingrained habits of Jewish accommodationism and self-blame." She sees no moral equivalence between the Arab and Israeli sides in the Middle Eastern conflict:
Wisse has been criticized for writing that "Palestinian Arabs repeople who breed and bleed and advertise their misery" According to Alexander Cockburn, Wisse is bothered by the "failure of nerve" of American Jewish intellectuals and their "squeamishness about the shootings and beatings meted out to the breeders". Following protests and Harvard University's decision to cancel
Marty Peretz
Martin H. Peretz (; born December 6, 1938) is an American former magazine publisher and educator. Formerly an assistant professor at Harvard University, he purchased ''The New Republic'' in 1974 and assumed editorial control shortly afterwards. H ...
's speech after Peretz wrote "Muslim life is cheap, especially to other Muslims", Wisse condemned "Groupthink" at Harvard and defended Peretz, saying that "to wish that Muslims would condemn the violence in their midst is not bigotry but liberality". Wisse is a member of the International Advisory Board of
NGO Monitor
NGO Monitor (Non-governmental Organization Monitor) is a right-wing non-governmental organization based in Jerusalem that reports on international NGO activity from a pro-Israel perspective.
The organization was founded in 2001 by Gerald M. St ...
*
* ''The Best of Sholem Aleichem'', Introduction by Irwing Howe and Wisse. (1979)
* ''The Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish Verse'', co-edited by Irwing Howe (1988)
* ''The I.L. Peretz Reader'' (1996)
Translations
* ''The I.L. Peretz Reader, by Isaac Loeb Peretz'' (1996)
* ''The Well'', by
Chaim Grade
Chaim Grade ( yi, חיים גראַדע) (April 4, 1910 – June 26, 1982) was one of the leading Yiddish writers of the twentieth century.
Grade was born in Vilnius, Russian Empire and died in The Bronx, New York. He is buried in Riverside Cemet ...
; original title: ''Der brunem''
Festschrift
*''Arguing the Modern Jewish Canon: Essays on Literature and Culture in Honor of Ruth R. Wisse'', ed. Justin Cammy et al., Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University: distributed by Harvard University Press, 2008.