Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

March 27, 2026

A Message from the Blue and White in the Red, White, and Blue

This year’s Jefferson Lecture offers Jewish tools for defending America’s promise.

Every year since 1972, the National Endowment for the Humanities has selected an outstanding individual to deliver the Jefferson Lecture. The first person given this honor was Lionel Trilling, who was also the first Jew to hold a chair in English literature at Columbia University. In 1977 it was given to Saul Bellow. On Wednesday night, the lecture was delivered by the brilliant scholar of Yiddish literature Ruth Wisse, who offers some Jewish wisdom for this great country at this crucial moment of its history. (Video, 64 minutes. A transcript is available at the link below.)

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