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If I Am Not For Myself...: The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews
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.
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.
225 pages, Paperback
First published October 12, 1992
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 30, 2026
Anti-Zionism is Today's Antisemitism
In If I Am Not for Myself: The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews, Ruth Wisse delivers a blistering indictment of modern Western politics, demonstrating that the universalist promises of liberalism are merely a moral facade for transactional cowardice. By tracing the journey from the historical Jewish impulse of self-blame to the geopolitical abandonment of Israel for Arab oil, Wisse exposes how Western elites systematically demonize the sovereign Jewish state to sanitize their own economic opportunism and appease raw, eliminationist hatred. Liberalism, in her unblinking view, has degenerated into an ideology of cowardice—one that prefers the polite comfort of appeasing aggressors over the reality of defending a besieged democracy. The book explores how the West failed its ultimate integrity test, trading its moral soul for economic convenience while forcing Israel to pay the price.
Before dissecting modern geopolitics, Wisse exposes the deep-seated psychological vulnerability that left Jewish communities exposed to Western betrayal. Historically, Jews reacted to hostility not with counter-aggression, but by attempting to be "nice"—internalizing the hatred of their neighbors and desperately seeking to rectify whatever flaws the dominant culture accused them of possessing. Wisse frames this as a tragic, pathologized desire for acceptance, where victims absorb the blame for things they never did just to maintain a fragile illusion of safety. Western societies quickly learned to weaponize this compliance. By transforming the Jewish people into a permanent cultural scapegoat, the West found an easy, reliable valve to release its own societal tensions, ensuring that no matter how seamlessly Jews integrated, their security remained entirely conditional on the whims of the host nation.
This historical template of exploitation achieved its most cynical, modern expression during the geopolitical shifts of the late 20th century. The turning point came with the 1973 OPEC oil embargo, following the Yom Kippur War. Suddenly, Western nations faced a stark ultimatum: maintain solidarity with a besieged democratic ally or secure the energy resources vital to their economic survival. With staggering speed, the West chose the latter. European nations like France and Britain blocked American supply planes bound for Israel from using their airspace, trading their democratic principles for guaranteed oil barrels. To mask this raw, transactional cowardice, Western governments and media institutions underwent a sudden, opportunistic shift. They began aggressively criticizing Israeli policy, dressing up a dirty financial transaction as sudden, high-minded concern for human rights.
Because the West needed to justify abandoning an ally for economic gain, Israel had to be systematically reframed as a monster—and this demonization became the psychological cover story for Western opportunism. The ultimate manifestation of this was the 1975 UN General Assembly Resolution 3379, which infamously declared Zionism to be a form of racism. This Soviet-and-Arab-sponsored propaganda masterstroke did not just target Israeli policy; it targeted the very legitimacy of Jewish national existence. Western intellectuals and progressives eagerly swallowed this inversion of reality. By transforming a multi-decade war of Arab elimination against Israel into a narrative of Israeli colonial aggression, Western liberals could comfortably distance themselves from the Jewish state, convincing themselves that their abandonment of Israel was a moral duty rather than an economic capitulation.
This cowardice brings Wisse to the ultimate test of liberalism. Liberalism prides itself on a universalist faith in reason, international law, and negotiated peace. However, when confronted with radical, eliminationist ideologies that reject the very concept of compromise, the liberal framework utterly collapses. In the wake of the 1993 Oslo Accords, the West continually pressured Israel to make tangible territorial concessions in exchange for vague, unfulfilled promises of peace. When these concessions were met with waves of suicide bombings, the liberal establishment did not condemn the perpetrators; instead, they policed Israel’s self-defense, demanding an impossible standard of perfection from a nation under siege. As the book acutely notes, "many good people find it psychologically and politically necessary to abandon the Jews to their fate so that they may preserve their easy optimism." By blaming Jews for the hostility they face, liberals easily clear their own consciences. Any political ideology that demands the vulnerability of its allies to appease violent autocracies is functionally bankrupt—a system that values the comfortable aesthetic of peace over actual moral truth.
This systemic collapse of Western moral integrity is fueled by a dangerous ideological sleight of hand: the transformation of classical antisemitism into modern anti-Zionism. Historically, anti-Jewish hatred justified itself by targeting Jews for their religion, race, or economic standing. Today, the sovereign Jewish state has become the primary target, allowing anti-Zionists to assault Jewish collective existence under the acceptable, sanitized cover of progressive human rights. The text offers zero quarter to Western liberals who treat anti-Zionism as a valid, intellectual debate. Tolerating this rhetoric under the guise of free speech or universalism does not protect democratic values; instead, it acts as a polite, sophisticated shield for raw, eliminationist hatred. By validating anti-Zionism, the liberal establishment gives ancient bigotry a respectable seat at the table, proving that the West would rather intellectualize a threat than muster the courage to defeat it.
Ultimately, Wisse’s diagnosis of the liberal betrayal is a warning that extends far beyond the fate of Israel. By treating the defense of the Jewish state as an inconvenient obstacle to global commerce and diplomatic comfort, the Western world has exposed its own civilizational rot. A liberalism that writes checks it refuses to cash in reality—and that requires the systematic demonization of an ally to justify its own greed—is an ideology that is already dead from within. Wisse forces us to confront a brutal truth: when the West chooses the path of least resistance against intolerant forces, it does not buy peace; it merely finances its own eventual collapse. To reject her warning is to embrace a fatal delusion, for history proves that the hatred which begins with the Jews never ends with them.
In If I Am Not for Myself: The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews, Ruth Wisse delivers a blistering indictment of modern Western politics, demonstrating that the universalist promises of liberalism are merely a moral facade for transactional cowardice. By tracing the journey from the historical Jewish impulse of self-blame to the geopolitical abandonment of Israel for Arab oil, Wisse exposes how Western elites systematically demonize the sovereign Jewish state to sanitize their own economic opportunism and appease raw, eliminationist hatred. Liberalism, in her unblinking view, has degenerated into an ideology of cowardice—one that prefers the polite comfort of appeasing aggressors over the reality of defending a besieged democracy. The book explores how the West failed its ultimate integrity test, trading its moral soul for economic convenience while forcing Israel to pay the price.
Before dissecting modern geopolitics, Wisse exposes the deep-seated psychological vulnerability that left Jewish communities exposed to Western betrayal. Historically, Jews reacted to hostility not with counter-aggression, but by attempting to be "nice"—internalizing the hatred of their neighbors and desperately seeking to rectify whatever flaws the dominant culture accused them of possessing. Wisse frames this as a tragic, pathologized desire for acceptance, where victims absorb the blame for things they never did just to maintain a fragile illusion of safety. Western societies quickly learned to weaponize this compliance. By transforming the Jewish people into a permanent cultural scapegoat, the West found an easy, reliable valve to release its own societal tensions, ensuring that no matter how seamlessly Jews integrated, their security remained entirely conditional on the whims of the host nation.
This historical template of exploitation achieved its most cynical, modern expression during the geopolitical shifts of the late 20th century. The turning point came with the 1973 OPEC oil embargo, following the Yom Kippur War. Suddenly, Western nations faced a stark ultimatum: maintain solidarity with a besieged democratic ally or secure the energy resources vital to their economic survival. With staggering speed, the West chose the latter. European nations like France and Britain blocked American supply planes bound for Israel from using their airspace, trading their democratic principles for guaranteed oil barrels. To mask this raw, transactional cowardice, Western governments and media institutions underwent a sudden, opportunistic shift. They began aggressively criticizing Israeli policy, dressing up a dirty financial transaction as sudden, high-minded concern for human rights.
Because the West needed to justify abandoning an ally for economic gain, Israel had to be systematically reframed as a monster—and this demonization became the psychological cover story for Western opportunism. The ultimate manifestation of this was the 1975 UN General Assembly Resolution 3379, which infamously declared Zionism to be a form of racism. This Soviet-and-Arab-sponsored propaganda masterstroke did not just target Israeli policy; it targeted the very legitimacy of Jewish national existence. Western intellectuals and progressives eagerly swallowed this inversion of reality. By transforming a multi-decade war of Arab elimination against Israel into a narrative of Israeli colonial aggression, Western liberals could comfortably distance themselves from the Jewish state, convincing themselves that their abandonment of Israel was a moral duty rather than an economic capitulation.
This cowardice brings Wisse to the ultimate test of liberalism. Liberalism prides itself on a universalist faith in reason, international law, and negotiated peace. However, when confronted with radical, eliminationist ideologies that reject the very concept of compromise, the liberal framework utterly collapses. In the wake of the 1993 Oslo Accords, the West continually pressured Israel to make tangible territorial concessions in exchange for vague, unfulfilled promises of peace. When these concessions were met with waves of suicide bombings, the liberal establishment did not condemn the perpetrators; instead, they policed Israel’s self-defense, demanding an impossible standard of perfection from a nation under siege. As the book acutely notes, "many good people find it psychologically and politically necessary to abandon the Jews to their fate so that they may preserve their easy optimism." By blaming Jews for the hostility they face, liberals easily clear their own consciences. Any political ideology that demands the vulnerability of its allies to appease violent autocracies is functionally bankrupt—a system that values the comfortable aesthetic of peace over actual moral truth.
This systemic collapse of Western moral integrity is fueled by a dangerous ideological sleight of hand: the transformation of classical antisemitism into modern anti-Zionism. Historically, anti-Jewish hatred justified itself by targeting Jews for their religion, race, or economic standing. Today, the sovereign Jewish state has become the primary target, allowing anti-Zionists to assault Jewish collective existence under the acceptable, sanitized cover of progressive human rights. The text offers zero quarter to Western liberals who treat anti-Zionism as a valid, intellectual debate. Tolerating this rhetoric under the guise of free speech or universalism does not protect democratic values; instead, it acts as a polite, sophisticated shield for raw, eliminationist hatred. By validating anti-Zionism, the liberal establishment gives ancient bigotry a respectable seat at the table, proving that the West would rather intellectualize a threat than muster the courage to defeat it.
Ultimately, Wisse’s diagnosis of the liberal betrayal is a warning that extends far beyond the fate of Israel. By treating the defense of the Jewish state as an inconvenient obstacle to global commerce and diplomatic comfort, the Western world has exposed its own civilizational rot. A liberalism that writes checks it refuses to cash in reality—and that requires the systematic demonization of an ally to justify its own greed—is an ideology that is already dead from within. Wisse forces us to confront a brutal truth: when the West chooses the path of least resistance against intolerant forces, it does not buy peace; it merely finances its own eventual collapse. To reject her warning is to embrace a fatal delusion, for history proves that the hatred which begins with the Jews never ends with them.
February 14, 2012
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?
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?
May 6, 2026
I have five pages of notes from this book. Dr. Ruth Wisse has taught me so much about the history of Jews in hostile environments over the last 150 years, the Yiddish culture, and another perspective on the complicated world we live in today. Her view is not the popular or common view among American (& Canadian) Jews, but one that I think is important to hear. This unique perspective on liberalism and Judaism is fascinating.
The book is not the easiest read. If you are looking for something less dense, I suggest her WSJ articles to start with. At nearly 100 years old, she still has columns a few times a year (as of 2026).
The book is not the easiest read. If you are looking for something less dense, I suggest her WSJ articles to start with. At nearly 100 years old, she still has columns a few times a year (as of 2026).
January 5, 2022
If only I could convince every liberal in America to read this book.
January 14, 2020
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.
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.
July 30, 2019
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.
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.
November 30, 2008
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.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews