Harvard Prof Wisse Calls on American Jews to Serve Here as Part of Israel’s ‘Army

I see it as part of my function to document instances of dual loyalty–in which American Jews are called upon to show loyalty to Israel. These appeals are problematic: 1, they define Jewish identity in a narrow and dubious way, as loyalty to a foreign country, and 2, more importantly, they have helped to confuse Americans, especially many Jews in politics and journalism, to think that our national interest is the same as Israel’s.

These appeals are rarely explicit–people know it’s not kosher. But in late March at the Center for Jewish History in New York, Ruth Wisse, a Harvard professor of Yiddish literature, issued an appeal to American Jews to serve here as part of Israel’s "army." At a conference for young Jewish journalists, Wisse was asked about how to respond to the "demonization" of Israel by the country’s critics. I will give her answer in full (with emphasis added):

I find it humiliating to have to answer to the kinds of charges that are made. Is this what my mind was created for? Is this to what I’m supposed to attend day after day? To this kind of battle against a kind of irrationality and venality, creative irrationality by the way. This is what is devastating to people who want to be intellectuals and I think it may be one of the reasons why intellectuals do not feel comfortable fighting this fight, because the fight, I agree with you, has to be fought in other terms. One has to use one’s intelligence in certain arenas to think of strategy not of cleverness, and that is very painful. I would give you the analogy, Every Israeli has to be in the Army for two or three years of his training at least and then a month of every year at least afterwards. I think that American Jews ought to think of themselves the same way, that for a certain part of your life you are just part of that army. Now army life is rotten, it asks you to do things like this [Wisse uses her hands], not to keep thinking. You’re not asked to analyze every situation from anew. You have to exercise, you have to learn. That kind of fight that we have to wage takes a totally different kind of advocacy training, of systematic thinking …

I will give you one example, I think about this all the time. I gave a talk at Stanford…there were about 15, 20 Arab students who had come to the talk, Friday night. They had not participated in the meal, but they just sat there at the side very politely and then when it was over they had their prepared questions. ‘So what about the apartheid of Israel? What about Israel’s apartheid policy toward the Arab population?’ And I said to him, ‘Why did you kill your grandmother?’.. He was very startled and he thought I hadn’t heard the question. And he repeated the question. I said, ‘No no no I heard the question, I understood the question, but I have a question for you, "Why did you kill your grandmother?"’ Now I couldn’t think of anything clever on the spot, it was a stupid thing, but I went into it and tried to explain to the rest of the audience exactly what this was– he would now have to answer to this absurd charge. I pressed him. I was not kind. I said, ‘Where is your grandmother? Can you produce her?’ Just to show how easy it is to put someone on the defensive with an accusation that has no merit, that has no substance… That is so different from the kind of intellectual subtleties that one has to keep working at in all other areas of our life, including what is said here in relation to [criticism of] the policies of Israel.

Sociologist Nathan Glazer responded that Wisse was being too simplistic, Jews were also outraged by Israel’s behavior. No one in the panel or audience repudiated Wisse’s appeal (though Eric Alterman did so on his blog a week later).

Related posts:

1. Hallelujah–Shaul Magid in ‘The Forward’ calls out Wisse and Peretz over Gaza, and calls Jews ‘to our collective senses’
2. Harvard Prof Says ‘Money, Media and Establishment’ Choke Dissent Re Israel
3. Israeli army forces Palestinians to serve as ‘human shields’ in raids
4. Harvard Prof Says Google Cancelled His Talk on Israel Lobby
5. Foxman and Wisse Attack Assimilation, Foxman Saying It Makes Jews Less Selfish