Does Jewish Literature Have to Be Depressing?

Taking this question as their point of departure, the scholar and critic Ruth Wisse and the novelist Dara Horn engage in a wide-ranging examination of modern Yiddish literature and Jewish literature more generally. They note a tendency in Yiddish fiction not only to avoid happy endings, but to avoid conventional endings altogether—and to shy away from the presumption, perhaps Christian in origin, that even tales of suffering and woe should come to a redemptive conclusion. (Video, 73 minutes; free registration required.)