Harvard prof who escaped Europe on eve of WWII dissects world’s oldest hatred

NEW YORK — No matter whether Jews are wanderers or warriors, there will always be an enemy that seeks to destroy them, said Harvard professor Ruth Wisse, paraphrasing the Passover Haggadah.

Therefore, Wisse said at the April 26 “History Matters” lecture at New York’s Center for Jewish History, it’s time to hold the mirror up to anti-Semites the world over and declare “dayenu” (enough).

In a wide-ranging conversation onstage with Center for Jewish History president and CEO David Myers, and a follow-up phone call with The Times of Israel, Wisse draws from her 2007 book “Jews and Power,” the Hebrew translation of which will soon be released in Israel.

During the discussions Wisse touched on several topics, including Jewish statehood, anti-Semitism and what it will take to make peace in the Middle East. It was a timely discussion given that Israel just celebrated 70 years of independence in a world where anti-Semitism is on the rise.

“We are a people of only 14 million, scattered in the world. We will always be destructible, or a good portion of us will be,” said Wisse, 82.

“People thought Zionism and Israel would be the answer to anti-Semitism — if we reclaimed our nation, in a time of emerging nation states, it would be successful in fighting anti-Semitism. I’ve come to learn anti-Semitism never has anything to do with something Jews can correct,” she said.

Wisse, born in 1936 in Czernowitz, now western Ukraine, can relate to the need for a safe haven.

In 1940 the Russians were on the march, having broken the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, otherwise known as the German-Soviet Non-aggression Pact.

Hebrew cover of ‘Jews and Power,’ by Ruth Wisse. (Courtesy: Maggid Books. Koren Publishers Jerusalem Ltd.)

Her father, a chemical engineer at Vilnius University, had been sent to build and run a rubber factory in Romania where he employed hundreds of people. He knew the family would not survive the slaughter that was to come, and so they fled.

“My parents ‘took us out of Egypt’ at the very last hour,” Wisse said of their escape.

They traveled from Czernowitz to Bucharest to Athens. From there they sailed to Lisbon and then on to New York City where they boarded a train to Montreal. She was four years old.

Wisse recalled those early years when her parents would receive devastating letters in Yiddish about family members who perished in the Holocaust, and how her mother, who spoke six languages, created a Yiddish literary salon. Although her family didn’t keep kosher, Passover was another matter. For eight days and nights they observed the holiday just as her religious grandfather once had.

Those experiences informed Wisse’s long career as a professor of comparative literature and Yiddish, and helps explain the depth of her feelings for Israel.

Israel: A new covenant?

Her book “Jews and Power” discusses how traditional Jews believed upholding the covenant with God constituted a treaty with the most powerful force in the universe.

Over the centuries this idea morphed into the belief that Jews need only pursue their religious mission on a purely moral plane. Yet, while being stateless freed Jews from the burden of governing, it also made them more vulnerable. Without a nation to call their own, Jews became perpetual targets and the scapegoating and violence increased, Wisse said.

Then along came Israel.

“Israel was created the same decade when one-third of us were destroyed. The Bible has nothing on that miracle. But here’s the thing: it did not solve anti-Semitism,” she said.

Ruth Wisse in conversation with David Myers at the Center for Jewish History, April 26, 2018. (Lauren Silberman)

True, for the first time in 2,000 years Jews had their own military and intelligence apparatus. On the other hand, because Israel is both a Jewish and a democratic state, it has become a convenient political target for those demonizing Jews and democracy, whether they are on the right or the left.

Over a decade ago in her book, Wisse wrote anti-Semitism is “a shared pretext for the nobleman who lost his property, the weaver who lost his customers to the machine, and the politician who needed an explanation for whatever was going wrong.”

This is true in today’s political climate, she said.

In Europe and the United States, both sides of the political spectrum use anti-Semitic tropes and demonstrations to blame Jews for a multitude of issues, whether it’s changing demographics, uncertain employment, Russian interference in elections, or the Palestinian-Israel conflict.

Regarding the last point, it wasn’t until the 1970s that Wisse came to believe the conflict was becoming intractable. She said she remembers feeling elated when Egyptian president Anwar Sadat stepped onto Israeli soil.

“It was a great moment, one that was very hopeful, but it didn’t last long. That’s the last time in my life that I will feel that way. One has to be cautious about, and wary of, that way of thinking,” Wisse said. “Not just that he was assassinated, but the Arab League was formed and the only thing that held them together, and still holds them together, is their common enmity toward Israel.”

So can the conflict end?

In her view the answer is a qualified yes.

Ruth Wisse, author of ‘Jews and Power.’ (Lauren Silberman)

“Obviously there can be an end to the conflict. One only has to demand what it was due from the very beginning. Israel should have been recognized in 1948 because that is what the UN demanded. You have to get back to the basics of recognition. Israel accepts the reality of the region. But Arabs do not want to live in coexistence with a Western, Jewish outpost in their midst.”

Both Arab and Palestinian leaders continue to foment anti-Semitism by casting themselves as the oppressed, Wisse said. It’s an argument that has found favor with liberals and Jewish liberals, particularly when it comes to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, she said.

“Why is anti-Semitism surfacing in the US, on the campuses? What purpose does it serve? It is the organizing principle of the politics of grievance and blame. The Palestinian cause becomes the organizing principle for many of these groups like Black Lives Matter, the Women’s March,” she said.

While there is no simple cure for anti-Semitism, one must continue to fight “stupidity and discrimination.” And Jews must stop the self-blame, she said.

“We must have the courage to ask others to recognize us,” she said. “Jews are always looking for flaws within themselves. You turn yourself inside out; you can’t do enough in order to accommodate the country you are living in. But anti-Semitism is the politics of grievance and blame and the mirror has to be held up.”