Jews in the American Academy, 1900-1940: The Dynamics of Intellectual Assimilation (1991)

Susanne Klingenstein wrote:

Being a transnational philologist was for [Leo] Wiener‘s mind what being a farmer was for his body: it eased tension. And it rooted the self — in the soil and in humanity… He did not belong [at Harvard]…

Wiener’s loving, romantic view of the Russian people stands in sharp contrast to his distanced, occasionally negative attitude toward his own people. …Wiener was an advocate of assimilation on the national as well as the international level…

Wiener’s political stance and his psychological needs are hardly separable. He was restless, discontent, and he lacked patience with those surrounding him… Just as Wiener was opposed to the separate existence of Jews within another nation, he was opposed to their forming a separate state…

Leo Wiener tried hard to overcome his descent in the “freedom” of America. He did not recognize that in some parts…”America” was merely an idea… It is hard to say how much he was aware of his failure to bridge the gap between them [Harvard’s WASP establishment] and himself. It is obvious that he reacted to the psychological pressures that his displacement created. He tried to root himself firmly in the ground, in America’s welcoming soil, and simultaneously in the realm he shared with all mankind — language.