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Ruth R. Wisse

Ruth R. Wisse, the author of the Nextbook Press book Jews and Power, is currently senior fellow at the Tikvah Fund.

  • All-Union Leninist Young Communist League members seizing grain hidden by kulaks in the graveyard, Ukraine.
    All-Union Leninist Young Communist League members seizing grain hidden by kulaks in the graveyard, Ukraine.
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    Why Do American Jews Idealize Soviet Communism?

    Perpetuating the romance of the Bolshevik regime, whose ‘good intentions’ cannot mask the horrors imposed in its name

    byRuth R. Wisse
  • Norman Podhoretz at the Commentary offices, 1960s.
    Norman Podhoretz at the Commentary offices, 1960s.
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    The Pugilist

    Friends and Politics, Part 3: Norman Podhoretz. The neoconservative icon and I weren’t personally close, but we shared a more important bond, over the struggle to defend Israel and American Jewry.

    byRuth R. Wisse
  • Irving Howe in his office at City College, circa 1989.
    Irving Howe in his office at City College, circa 1989.
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    The Socialist

    Friends and Politics, Part 2: Irving Howe. The prominent critic and I worked on Yiddish translations together, but a dispute over Israel and its Arab neighbors ruptured our relationship—until we reconnected over literature.

    byRuth R. Wisse
  • Ruth Wisse and Saul Bellow at the Jewish Public Library in Montreal, winter 1969.
    Ruth Wisse and Saul Bellow at the Jewish Public Library in Montreal, winter 1969.
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    The Novelist

    Friends and Politics, Part 1: Saul Bellow. The Nobel Prize-winner and I shared a love of literature and of Yiddish, but our friendship was tested by decades-long disagreements over politics.

    byRuth R. Wisse
  • (Library of Congress)
    (Library of Congress)
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    Why Are Jews Liberals?

    A symposium

    byRuth R. Wisse,Morris Dickstein,Jonah Goldberg,Todd Gitlin,andRon Radosh
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