Highlights:
Prof. Ruth Wisse discusses her life and work, the subject of her memoir Free as a Jew: A Personal Memoir of National Self-Liberation (Wicked Son, 2021). She recalls encounters with Leonard Cohen, Itzik Manger and Isaac Bashevis Singer, and she reads excerpts from her book (in English) touching on early encounters with Avrom Sutzkever and Max Weinreich. Wisse was Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard from 1993 to 2014. Her books include The Schlemiel as Modern Hero and The Modern Jewish Canon, and she co-edited The Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish Verse. She received the National Humanities Medal in 2007 and delivered the NEH Jefferson Lecture in 2026. She is currently Distinguished Senior Fellow at Tikvah, where she holds lectures and gives courses frequently, which you can find at Tikvah.org’s course website here: https://ideas.tikvah.org/courses
From our archive: presentation by our late cohost Iosif Lakhman regarding the infamous date 12 August 1952, known in Yiddish cultural circles as the Night of the Murdered Poets, originally aired in 2008.
Music
Emil Gorovets, with musical arrangements and piano accompaniment by Zalmen Mlotek:
Ikh Bin a Yid (Itzik Feffer)
In Vinter Farnakhtn (Dovid Hofshteyn)
Di Muze (Peretz Markish)
An Alter Nign (Leib Kvitko)
Instrumental music: DEM HELFANDS TANTS, an instrumental track from the CD Jeff Warschauer: The Singing Waltz
Air date: August 12, 2026