Ruth Wisse on her new memoir, campus antisemitism and our abundance of Holocaust memorials

Ruth Wisse in an interview with The CJN Daily.

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Ruth Wisse is the author of the new book, Free as a Jew: A Personal Memoir of National Self-Liberation. Its Canadian debut coincided with Jewish Book Month, hosted by the Jewish Public Library in Montreal. But the timing wasn’t a coincidence.

Wisse, 85, has spent decades as a professor of Yiddish at Harvard, and pioneered the Jewish Studies graduate program at McGill. These days, her unabashed opinions, often conservative, target left-leaning Jews and what she believes is an over-emphasis on mourning the Holocaust, rather than celebrating Israel.

Wisse joins the show to discuss these topics and more in an expansive interview.

What we talked about:

Credits

The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Victoria Redden is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our theme music is by Dov Beck-Levine. Our title sponsor is Metropia. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network; find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.