From escaping the Nazis as a child to a pioneering academic & literary career, an unmissable encounter with Ruth Wisse.

‘Ruth Wisse’s intellectual autobiography is a lasting work of profound moral force and scathing political discernment’ High praise from Cynthia Ozick for Free as a Jew: A Personal Memoir of National Self-Liberation.

Harvard Professor Emerita Ruth Wisse escaped the Nazis as a child and devoted her life as a female Jewish refugee to pioneering women’s equality in the academy and amplifying the literary voice of her decimated people. In her controversial new memoir she argues that the American Jewish establishment is refusing to exercise its power in the defence of Jews being assaulted on streets today and that Harvard is infested with anti-Judaism, as well as shedding light on her relationships with Leonard Cohen, Saul Bellow and Isaac Bashevis Singer. An unmissable online encounter with the leading scholar and author as she approaches her 86th birthday.

After first broadcast this stream will be available to watch on demand until Thu 31 Mar.

In Association with The Rabin Chair Forum, George Washington University

Ruth R. Wisse is the Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University emeritus. She is a noted scholar of Yiddish literature and of Jewish history and culture.

Josh Glancy is special correspondent for The Sunday Times, reporting for the paper from across Britain and Europe. Prior to this he was the paper’s Washington bureau chief and spent five years reporting from across most of America, but never Alaska or the Dakotas. He’s also a columnist for The Sunday Times and The Jewish Chronicle.