If I Am Not For Myself by Ruth Wisse

by Ruth R. Wisse

From Simon & Schuster, If I Am Not for Myself is Ruth R. Wisse ’ s liberal betrayal of the Jews.

If I Am Not For Myself is Ruth R. Wisse’s argument that liberals must re-examine their attitude towards the Jewish question and extend their own principles of tolerance to the Jews by condemning those who seek to persecute or annihilate them.

Genres: Jewish

Unknown Binding

First published October 12, 1992

Reviews

[Michael Connolly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ruth Wisse is a scholar of Yiddish studies. Since only one of my parents, namely my mother, is Jewish, my knowledge of Yiddish is limited. But at least I know that the difference between a schlemiel and a schlimazel. The schlemiel is the one who spills his soup on the schlimazel.
Wisse points out that anti-Semitism has endured for a long time. Theodor Herzl had hoped that assimilation was the answer for European Jews, but the Alfred Dreyfus affair convinced him that there must be a homeland for the Jews. Even now, that goal has been only partially achieved. Not only the West Bank, but also the land presently called Jordan, were originally intended to be part of the Jewish homeland, but are now in the hands of the Arabs.
Part of this book is a search for the answer to why most Jews are politically liberal, even though their traditional religious values are closer to the conservative end of the political spectrum. She finds only partial answers. One answer is the desire of many Jews to become part of a wider community by embracing utopian ideologies that transcend ethnicity.
A related issue is why the political left has decreased its support for Zionism in recent years. One reason she gives is cowardice. It takes guts to stand up for Israel, when most of the world portrays the Palestinian refugees as the victims of Israeli aggression. Ruth Wisse believes that we Jews should stop pandering to our enemies, and should instead stand up for our right to exist. She believes that we Jews are not just a religion, but a race, a culture, an ethnicity, and that we have the right to a land to call our own. If we Jews are not for ourselves, who will be for us?

[Dianna S · Rating 5 out of 5]

If only I could convince every liberal in America to read this book.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

As always, my quibbles first. The intro and epilogue are fictional letters by the author to a fictional relative in Israel. And one more quibble, not with the book but the likely audience, is that the book is basically "preaching to the choir." In other words, the bulk of the readers are not going to be the politically liberal Jewish people to whom this book is directed.

This work is a well-written, pointed statement about the failure of Jews to stand up for their own interests. The Jews typically side with their enemies. This echoes the pathetic history of the Jews' alliance with the Communist movement in Russia during the early 1900's. This echoes the pathetic history of the Jews in fanatically supporting the Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR was perfectly happy to watch the Jews walk the gangplank from the ship the St. Louis, in many cases indirectly into the Eisensatzgrupen and the gas chambers.

Ruth Wisse traces the path of Jewish short story writers in Israel who impugn the moral credentials of the efforts of the State of Israel to defend itself and fail to even note the vicious primitivism of their enemies.

The book makes a lot of points that need making; too bad they will fall on ears that thoroughly agree with her.

[Howard Jaeckel · Rating 5 out of 5]

In addition to being a foremost authority on Yiddish and Jewish literature, a distinguished professor emerita at Harvard University (with whom one wishes one could have studied), a woman with the mien of a kindly grandmother (in whose warmth one would wish to bask), Ruth R. Wisse is a powerful polemicist whose incisive and slashing prose, frequently deployed to eviscerate the enemies and critics of Israel, caused one IDF colonel to evaluate her utility to the Jewish state as being “worth a battalion.”

As a conservative and a strong supporter of Israel — who has had occasion himself to engage in some polemics in exchanges with leftwing friends who seem to direct more of their moral dissatisfaction with imperfect democracies at Israel than even the United States — I was drawn to If I Am Not For Myself in anticipation of Professor Wisse’s polemics. While the book is more analytical than polemical, its description of the liberal betrayal of Israel is spot on. Highly recommended.

[Nathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why do Jews earn like Protestants yet vote like Puerto Ricans? Antisemitism- Ruth Wisse lays the case out for this very succinctly in this short read.