Sylabus
First Week: Introduction to the course: Who were the Habsburg Jews?
In our first session we will discuss both the origins of the Habsburg monarchy as such and that of its Jewry - who were they, were did they come from and how did they differ from each other (Bohemian, Galician and Hungarian Jewry)?
Second Week: Breakdown of traditional Jewish society, shifting border between the "Ostjuden" and "Westjuden"
In this class we will discuss both the external and the internal barriers that defined the Jewish society in its pre-modern period. The focal point of this class will be the dissolution of the traditional Jewish society in the area settled by the Ashkenazi Jewry.
Third Week: Jewish Enlightenment and its influence on the Habsburg Jewry
In our third meeting we will focus on the Jewish intellectual movement Haskala, on its origins and its influence on the Jewish society in the Habsburg lands. We will be dealing with life and thoughts of Moses Mendelssohn, a central figure of the Haskala.
Fourth Week: Emancipation
The purpose of this class is to examine the process of Jewish legal emancipation in the Austria Hungary. In this class we look at the emancipation of Habsburg Jewry from a broader perspective by comparing the individual legal acts that emancipated Jews in France, Prussia and in the Habsburg Empire.
Fifth Week: Modern Jewish identity in the Habsburg lands.
This class will discuss the question of Jewish identity and (self) definition in the Habsburg lands. In other words, were the Jews of the Habsburg Empire an ethnic, religious or a social group?
Sixth Week: Who is a Czech Jew?
In the sixth week we will focus on the Bohemian Jewry, a group of people between the competing Czech and German nationalities. Primarily we will investigate their character, identity and the process of integration in the surrounding society.
Seventh Week: Jews as Magyars or as Magyarizers?
In this class we will examine the place of Jews in the Hungarian kingdom, their social status and above all, their political and national identity.
Eighth Week: Jews of Galicia: between Poles, Ukrainians and Germans
In the eighth week we will focus on the largest Jewish group in the Austria Hungary, on the Galician Jews. An important part of the class will be devoted to the problem of Galician Jews as a group between the Poles, Ukrainians and Germans.
Ninth Week: The Jews of Vienna
Ninth class will be devoted to the study of the Austrian Jews, particularly, the Jews of the royal town - Vienna.
Tenth Week: Religion Revised
In this class we will examine the influence of emancipation and the Enlightenment on Jewish religious identity, we will focus both on the beginnings of Orthodox Judaism and on the reform movement in Judaism.
Eleventh Week: Jewish Gentile Relations in the Austria-Hungary.
Our eleventh session will be devoted to the study of Jewish-Gentile relations; we will investigate both the traditional and popular anti-Jewish feelings and the rise of modern anti-Semitism.
Twelfth Week: Finding a New Homeland
In our last class we will examine the breakdown of the Habsburg Empire and the place of Jews in the newly established republics - Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary.
Anotace
This course will be dealing with the Jewish experience in the Habsburg Monarchy (from the half of the sixteenth until the early twentieth century) and its successor states. This course will begin with examining the traditional Jewish society in the Danube region (the so-called Talmudic age).
Later on we will study the process of modernization, both within the Jewish society (Haskala) and from the outside (legal emancipation). In addition, this course will compare different Jewish communities within the Empire; the Jews in Bohemian lands, Hungarian Kingdom and in Galicia.
We will examine their place in the surrounding society, the question of identity and loyalty, as well as the shifting demographic and religious patterns in the Jewish life. This course will finish with investigating the place of Jews in the newly established republics (Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary).