Howard Jacobson
Ruth Wisse writes with the incisive, unforgiving tools of an engraver. When she speaks of the Yiddish novelist Mendele Mocher Sforim’s ‘bruising candour’ she could be describing herself. Never less than a scholar, she is at one and the same time street-fighter and prophet, intrepid in her enunciation of the three great, unfashionable passions that inspire this fierce memoir: Yiddish culture and Yiddish writers; ‘the God-inspired civilization’—that thing of more than learning and more than faith—that makes a Jew a Jew; and Israel. Let others slide and shrink and vacillate, at least there is Ruth Wisse—forever resolute and fearless.
Rick Richman
Free as a Jew succeeds on three levels—personal, intellectual, and cultural—and it is written in a gracefully modest style that makes [Wisse’s] points even more persuasive. Her final paragraph contains a message: She dedicates the book to her students—and to their students—‘in the hope that they will retrieve and revive the precious freedoms that are being lost.’ [It is] a beautiful and necessary book.
Leon R. Kass
In this profoundly moving account of her extraordinary life, Ruth Wisse displays what it means to deserve our freedom and to earn our glorious Jewish inheritance. A joyous exponent of great Yiddish literature, a fierce defender of Israel and Jewish teachings, and a fearless opponent of resurgent Jew-hatred and its silent abettors, Wisse inspires us to liberate ourselves by following her example. A must read!
Ben Shapiro
"Ruth Wisse is one of America's greatest thinkers. Her story is inspiring and uplifting—and, coming from an intellectual Jewish icon, a ringing reminder of what America is, and what we stand to lose should we lose it."
Masha Merkulova
"From the center of the storm comes a dishy and damning memoir from the woman who brought Old World Yiddish scholarship and intellectualism back from the dead. Deliciously, Ruth Wisse is revealing all: the gaffes and regrets, the egos and arrogance, the heckling, the joys,and the soul-crushing sadness. But even more, this book lands as a battle cry to our youth and the entire community. Hurry! Our heritage is so rich and our enemies so insidious. There is little time with everything to lose and even more to gain.”
Jonathan Neumann
Ruth Wisse says her life has taken the form of an unpayable debt. She is right—but it’s a debt we all owe to her, for a lifetime of uncompromising advocacy for Israel and the Jewish People that this brave, honest, and vital book so captivatingly chronicles. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the Jewish past and in the dangers—and possibilities—of the American future.
Elizabeth Kratz
Part memoir, part ethnography, part cautionary tale, Free as a Jew should be read by all who care for the past, present, and future of our people.
Cynthia Ozick
Ruth Wisse’s intellectual autobiography is a lasting work of profound moral force and scathing political discernment; of a passionately lived education that is itself a transforming education for the reader; of a family record of refuge and character that is also the history of a people. And more: at its fiery heart is the teaching of a language and its literature—Yiddish, born and rooted in polyglot Europe, while its storytellers and poets everywhere and always retain the meanings of Genesis.
Free as a Jew can be read as a history of the future. Its illuminations are likely to be as urgent one hundred years hence as they are now.
Liel Leibovitz
"Ruth Wisse's memoir, like the great literature she taught generations to cherish, is a study in how our fierce attachments shape us, and how we, in turn, shape our modern moment by affirming our ancient covenants. Her voice, like that of Hebrew prophets from time immemorial, is an invitation to revel in the only sort of freedom that lasts, the freedom to embrace our tradition together, with joy and with strength. Always, but particularly in these troubled times, Ruth Wisse is indispensable."
Sylvia Barack Fishman
Ruth Wisse’s compelling memoir unfolds in vivid detail, personal experiences intimately braided together with momentous historical events—Lisbon in the 1940s with Jews escaping the rising European storm; Yiddish poets in hardscrabble kibbutzim during Israel’s struggling early years; fierce ideological battles at Harvard faculty meetings as the deadening hand of political correctness descends. It’s not just revelations about Leonard Cohen, Saul Bellow, Irving Howe, Larry Summers, and other unforgettable characters in Wisse’s life (grandmother Fradl, the most beautiful woman in Vilna, moved me to tears) it’s Wisse’s clear, astonishingly honest, original voice that makes this book a must-read. Ruth Wisse is a brilliant, courageous,and passionate defender of the Jewish people and the Jewish State—and Ruth Wisse is great company.
Norman Podhoretz
"As this extraordinary memoir demonstrates once again, Ruth Wisse has emerged as the most powerful champion in our time of the Jewish people—its history, its culture, and its unique position at the heart of Western civilization."
