Jewish Politics, the Disease of Anti-Semitism, and Yiddish Literature

Ruth Wisse, the great scholar of Yiddish literature, argues that anti-Semitism is best understood as a political ideology opposed to liberal democracy and a threat to society as a whole—not just Jews. In a wide-ranging conversation, she also discusses hatred for Israel on college campuses, its relationship to the decline of the university, and how to fight it. How did she arrive at her positions? In part from her study of Yiddish literature, whose lessons remain important to this day. Watch the video below (interview by Bill Kristol, about 100 minutes):