Ruth Wisse talks with George E. Johnson about her childhood in Eastern Europe and Montreal, her development as a scholar of Yiddish literature and a public intellectual, and the place of Jews and of Jewish studies on American college campuses. On the last point, she comments:
In the same way that Jewish studies benefited at its beginnings by the opening-up of the universities [to new fields of study], the [current] atmosphere of multiculturalism . . . impacts Jewish studies negatively and has made Jewish studies much less popular. The Jews are not popular on campus, and when the Jews are not popular, when Judaism is not popular, when Israel is not popular, it’s not going to be the same. In the early days, Jewish studies was cutting-edge. It was wonderful. It represented the best of this new potential. It was riding a wave. Now it’s even more important because we are now trying to stem a tsunami of a different kind.
When I began teaching, my feeling about Jewish studies was that it was an enhancement of American civilization, that because America had been so inclusive of the Jews, it was just greater proof of the worth of American civilization. . . .
But you do not have any longer, on the part of universities, a commitment to strengthening the teaching of American civilization, of the Constitution, of American history, of the arguments that formed American life and thinking. . . . None of this is present. The real pain and the real fear is of the erosion of America itself.
Read more on Moment: http://www.momentmag.com/ruth-wisse-education-of-a-jewish-conservative/