Ruth Wisse - Jews and Power

The Tikvah Podcast

Tikvah

Judaism, Politics, Religion & Spirituality, News

4.6 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 10 March 2014

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Lord Acton famously proposed that "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." In Jews and Power, Ruth Wisse provides an analysis of Jewish history that suggests the exact opposite. With neither sovereignty, nor centralized government, nor even mechanisms of self-defense, the Jewish people reconceived the meaning of their nation in manifestly moral terms. They fell prey to the danger of being corrupted by powerlessness. Generations of exilic Jews sought to live as "a light unto the nations," seeking toleration and protection from their host rulers. But their political dependency left diaspora Jews vulnerable to being scapegoated –a tendency that has persisted despite the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in Israel. Ranging from the Hebrew Bible to contemporary politics, how does Professor Wisse’s analysis of Jewish history affect our understanding of the State of Israel, the United States, and all those nations who–admirably–insist on the moral dimension of political life?

Listen and reconsider Jews and Power with its author, Professor Ruth Wisse, Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University

Recording took place on March 10, 2014.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Let me just, before we begin, introduce our guests who needs little introduction.
0:06.2	Nevertheless, Ruth Weiss is professor of Yiddish literature and comparative literature at Harvard University,
0:12.3	former director of its Center for Jewish Studies.
0:15.6	She's written really too many books to name, but tonight we're here to celebrate and really reinvestigate
0:23.6	this book from 2007 Jews in Power. So, join me in welcoming Ruth Weiss.
0:31.6	Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you so much for coming and especially people whom I know.
0:41.3	It's very heartening to see you here.
0:45.3	So thank you so much for having me.
0:48.3	And it's a book which I wrote several years ago, so I hope I still remember the arguments that I made in it, but we'll see.
0:56.2	In this room, there'll be people to help you.
0:58.1	Oh, good. All right.
0:59.5	So look, I thought we could just begin. If you don't mind, I'm going to quote you to yourself.
1:04.0	All right.
1:04.9	This is a passage that you write early in the book, but I think really lays out in a way the theological
1:12.1	core from which many political arguments flow. The prophets you write taught that the political
1:18.9	fate of the Jews depend on their ability to convince not their rivals of their military prowess,
1:24.8	but God of their uprightness. They linked a nation's potency to its moral strength,
1:31.3	putting the Jews on a perpetual trial for their political actions, and before a supreme judge.
1:37.3	So I wonder, what is the political implication from that kind of theological stance in the Bible?
1:45.8	Well, that is kind of the starting point of the book.
1:51.2	And the problem in it is that the good and the bad are really inextricably bound up.
1:59.6	I think that the fact that Jews invested their entire being in this contractual agreement with God,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Tikvah, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Tikvah and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.