As the civilized world grapples with a resurgence of antisemitism, few voices have been as unrelenting — or as contrarian — as Ruth Wisse’s. The Harvard professor emerita of Yiddish literature and lifelong Zionist has spent decades challenging both the usual explanations for Jew-hatred and the responses of Jews themselves. Writing in American Thinker, biographer Susan Quinn profiles Wisse’s argument that antisemitism is not a mere prejudice but a deliberate political weapon — one that Wisse calls “anti-ism.”
Born in Romania in 1936, Wisse immigrated to Canada with her family before moving to the United States to attend Columbia. She went on to teach at Harvard, where she became known for her blunt assessments of Jewish communal strategy. Her core claim: when societies face internal failures, they reach for the “pointing finger” — blaming Jews for problems that have nothing to do with them. Economic crises? The Jews. Banking failures? The Jews. This scapegoating, she says, is a timeless distraction, much like a magician’s trick diverting the audience from the real mechanics at play.
In an interview with journalist Haviv Rettig Gur, Wisse laid out her practical framework — one that shifts the conversation from victimhood to strategy. She argues that systemic antisemitism serves an organizing function: it galvanizes disparate groups around a common enemy. The Nazis, she notes, mastered this by attributing all of Germany’s social ills to the Jews.
Wisse offers another telling example: the Arab League. Formed in 1945, the newly independent Arab states were fractured by competing national interests and political systems, making consensus nearly impossible. Yet they found unity in one cause: dismantling the newly established State of Israel. Believing — incorrectly, as Wisse insists — that Jews had driven Palestinians from the land, these nations coordinated military efforts in 1948. The collective defense failed militarily, but it forged a lasting political collaboration. In Wisse’s reading, that unity was purchased with antisemitic ideology — a warning of how easily shared hatred can substitute for shared purpose.
Wisse’s critique extends to contemporary Jewish responses. Holocaust education, she argues, has largely failed — and author Dara Horn’s work explains why. Horn observes that museums and memorials often focus on the destruction of Jewish communities while omitting the vibrant, resilient Jewish life that existed before and after. By portraying Jews primarily as passive victims, these institutions inadvertently invite further victimization. Wisse agrees: Jews must present themselves not as objects of pity, but as contributors to civilization — powerful, enduring, and worthy of respect.
So what does Wisse propose? A complete reversal of strategy. Jews, she says, must stop apologizing for grievances they did not cause. They must stop showing compassion toward those who would destroy them. They must insist the world acknowledge Jewish contributions. They must stop denying their heritage. And, in a pointed political aside, she calls on Jews to stop affiliating with groups that demonize them — naming the Democratic Party, the Democratic Socialists of America, and Muslim groups that routinely blame Jews for various crimes.
A political war, not a cultural one
Wisse’s framing is deliberately provocative. She rejects the notion that antisemitism is an irrational relic of the past, something to be educated away. Instead, she treats it as a recurring, functional ideology — one that powerful actors deploy when they need to consolidate support or divert attention from their own failures. This is why she prefers “anti-ism” to “antisemitism”: the phenomenon is not really about Jews at all, but about the mechanics of blame, organization, and power.
Her argument carries uncomfortable implications for Jewish communal institutions. If Holocaust education that emphasizes victimhood is counterproductive, then what should replace it? Wisse’s answer is clear: education that stresses Jewish texts, traditions, and contributions — not just what was lost, but what has endured. She urges Jews, whether observant or not, to educate themselves about what it means to be Jewish, and to take pride in that identity rather than hide it.
On college campuses, where antisemitic incidents have surged in recent years, Wisse calls for continued, vigorous pushback. She believes that capitulation or self-erasure only fuels the flames. Instead, Jews must demand their place — in the world, in America, and in the Jewish community — as people who deserve respect and dignified treatment.
The stakes for America
For Wisse, antisemitism is not just a Jewish problem. She views it as a threat to the American republic itself. When any group is used as a scapegoat, the entire social fabric weakens — and the “pointing finger” that goes after Jews today can be redirected at others tomorrow. Her call is not merely to defend Jewish interests, but to defend the very idea of a society where grievances are addressed through evidence and reason, not through demonization.
Susan Quinn’s profile paints Wisse as one of the bravest soldiers in this fight — someone who has refused to cower, who has challenged both left and right, and who has insisted that Jews stop seeing themselves as victims. In an era of rising antisemitism, that message is both urgent and polarizing. Critics may bristle at Wisse’s political targeting, but her underlying insight — that antisemitism is a strategic weapon deployed for political ends — is hard to dismiss.
Wisse’s remedy is simple in words, difficult in practice: stop apologizing, stop appeasing, and start asserting. But she offers no easy roadmaps, only the conviction that Jews must reclaim their narrative — not as victims, but as a people with a proud past and a rightful place in the present. As she puts it, the ability to speak one’s mind openly is crucial to the republic we cherish. Now more than ever.
Source: www.americanthinker.com — https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/08/ruth-wisse-fighting-the-anti-ism-of-our-time/