Unlike others who cower in the face of anti-Semitism, Ruth Wisse has fought back for many years, challenging the usual explanations for this sickness and encouraging American Jews to confront anti-Semitism as not only a threat to the Jewish people, but also a threat to America. If you’ve never heard of Ruth Wisse, a lifelong Zionist and Israel crusader, you’re in for a delightful, as well as educational, experience.
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Born in Romania in 1936, her family immigrated to Canada before she moved to America to attend Columbia. She became a professor of Yiddish literature at Harvard and has been an outspoken critic of the way many Jews respond to antisemitism. Her approach is not only energizing and transformational, but also attacks the core reasons behind this hateful belief system. Instead of calling it antisemitism, she often uses the term “anti-ism,” which refers to the many ways people attack and discredit groups they want to erase from civilization.
Understanding Wisse’s approach offers an opportunity to see this disease of the mind from a political perspective and as something that can be strategically destroyed. In an interview with journalist Haviv Rettig Gur, she described her practical understanding (beginning at 11:01):
Wisse’s argument centers on the “pointing finger”—that is, how people and groups in society blame the Jews for their problems. Economic problems? It’s the Jews. Banking issues? It’s the Jews. This scapegoating is always popular, even though these problems have nothing to do with the Jews.
Thus, the “pointing finger” supported a cultural mindset of grievance and blame. Just as a magician uses distraction to divert attention from how his “magic” works, people have used the same “tricks” to distract society from the real source of its problems.
Following finger-pointing, systemic antisemitism galvanizes people around a common enemy. People join groups to focus their accusations and blame. The Nazis organized masterfully by blaming the Jews for most of their social ills.
Wisse provides another example of how other peoples and nations have used the Jews as an organizing principle, describing the newly formed Arab League in 1945:
In the early years, the Arab League faced numerous challenges. The newly independent states presented varying national interests and different political systems, making it difficult to achieve consensus on many issues. Yet, the League made notable progress, particularly during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, when it attempted to coordinate military support for Palestinian Arabs against the newly established State of Israel. Although the League’s collective defense efforts were largely unsuccessful, they laid the groundwork for ongoing political discussions and collaboration in the years to come.
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This description leaves out that these Arab states needed a belief that would galvanize them into working together. Unifying around dismantling the State of Israel on behalf of the Palestinians was the ideal approach. After all, they believed, incorrectly, that the Jews had driven the Palestinians from the land, and they coordinated their militaries to destroy Israel.
Fortunately for Israel, they failed.
Today, organizing the Jews has taken a different tenor. Although educators have tried to increase Holocaust education, the approach has been less than successful. Author Dara Horn explains, in part, why:
Horn’s work calls attention to the problematic way Holocaust memory is frequently separated from contemporary Jewish realities. In her critique of museums, public memorials, and educational curricula, she observes that many institutions highlight the destruction of Jewish communities while omitting the vibrancy of Jewish life before and after the Holocaust. For Horn, effective Holocaust education ought to include not just what was lost, but the enduring traditions, texts, and ideas that have sustained Jewish people for millennia.
In other words, portraying Jews as passive victims does not present them as resilient and powerful contributors to the culture. Instead, that image allows others not only to see us as victims, but also to victimize us.
Jews must rally around a completely different strategy to fight back against those who would destroy us. We must stop apologizing for grievances we did not cause. We must stop showing compassion for those who would destroy us. We must insist that the world acknowledge and appreciate our contributions. We must stop denying our Jewish heritage. We must stop affiliating with groups that hate us, such as the Democrat party, the Democratic Socialists of America, and Muslim groups that continually blame us for one crime or another.
We must continue to fight back on college campuses. We must educate ourselves to truly understand what it means to be a Jew, whether we are observant or not.
Finally, we must demand our place in the world, in this country, and in the Jewish community as people who deserve respect and respectful treatment.
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It’s long past time.
YouTube image (cropped and deblurred)