Overview

Scholar and critic Ruth R. Wisse warns that the failure of liberals to stand up for Jews facing resurgent antisemitism signals the collapse of liberal democratic values. “Ruth R. Wisse is a writer of passion and precision, who has extraordinary polemical powers. All these enviable qualities are beautifully engaged in If I Am Not for Myself, an immensely impressive book on a subject of universal importance.” —Joseph Epstein, author of Never Say You’ve Had a Lucky Life: Especially If You’ve Had a Lucky Life, and recipient of the National Humanities Award “You don’t have to be Jewish to be moved and instructed by this brilliant critique of liberalisms that do not reciprocate the devotions of their adherents. Ruth R. Wisse joins literary grace to analytical rigor in a book that should generate necessary debates for a long time to come.” —Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, founder of the Institute for Religion and Public Life and First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life “The Jews have enemies, as this book urges us to recognize in its passionately felt and powerfully reasoned argument. Ruth R. Wisse mounts a resolve defense of basic Jewish rights and offers a determined challenge to all who would deny them. Her analysis of the psychological and political sources of anti-Jewish hostility is as formidable as it is provocative and deserves the most serious reflection.” —Alvin H. Rosenfeld, professor, and Director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, Indiana University “Wisse’s book is a timely and appropriate response to the ‘Woody Allen syndrome,’ typical of American Jews who charge Israel with betraying their own liberal legacy through its supposed suppression of Palestinian rights. What she charges in return is nothing less than the betrayal of the Jewish heritage itself by well-meaning, assimilated American Jews. Whether or not one agrees with all of her assertions, her book is mandatory reading for those who reject the platitudes of both Left and Right—which coincide in blaming Jews for the aggressions waged against them.” —Ronald Radosh, professor, and coauthor of The Rosenburg File: A Search for the Truth “This is a wonderful book, passionate, wise, and original. Wisse shows how liberalism has led the Jews into the worst betrayal of all—self-betrayal.” —Rael Jean Isaac, coauthor of The Coercive Utopians and Madness in the Streets

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Ruth R. Wisse is currently a senior fellow at the Tikvah Fund and recipient of its Herzl Award. She was a professor of Yiddish and comparative literature at Harvard University from 1993–2014 and before that, helped found the Jewish Studies Department at McGill University. Her books include The Schlemiel as Modern Hero, The Modern Jewish Canon: A Journey Through Language and Culture, No Joke: Making Jewish Humor, Jews and Power, and Free as a Jew: A Personal Memoir of National Self-Liberation. In 2007, she was awarded the National Medal for the Humanities.

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