Ruth R. Wisse, research professor in Yiddish and comparative literature at Harvard and a distinguished senior fellow at the Tikvah Fund, will discuss and sign copies of her widely-acclaimed book, No Joke: Making Jewish Humor, at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 14, 2016 at Congregation B'nai B'rith.  A regular contributor to Mosaic: Advancing Jewish Thought, she is the author or editor of eight books including Jews and Power, which the Los Angeles Times called, "challenging, erudite and penetrating," and The Modern Jewish Canon: A Journey Through Language and Culture which received the National Jewish Book Award and which Leon Wieseltier hailed as "a book of sharp ideas and beautiful worries."  In 2007, she was awarded the National Humanities Medal for "scholarship and teaching that have illuminated Jewish literary traditions."  She is a member of the Editorial Board of the Jewish Review of Books and a frequent contributor to Commentary.  Wisse was born in Czernowitz (now part of Ukraine) and raised in Montreal, Canada.  After receiving her Ph.D. at McGill University, she became its first professor to offer courses in Yiddish literature and also helped found its Department of Jewish Studies.

Presented by the Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Foundation Endowed Symposia in Jewish Studies at UCSB.