Syllabus
This course explores transformations in the political, social, and cultural life of Central European Jewry in the modern era. It introduces and critically examines selected core themes that formed histories and cultures of the Jews from the eighteenth until the twenty-first century. Topics include traditional Jewish society, enlightenment, emancipation, racial antisemitism, Jewish nationalism and Zionism, the Holocaust, and the rebirth of Jewish life after 1945.
Please note that this is an undergraduate course – but one that requires work and engagement. This is a course where we learn, engage in debates, where we agree and disagree, but all are discussions are grounded in scholarly literature.
With this in mind, please inform me by Week 2 if there are any reasons – religious, medical, any other – that might impact your performance in class and that you want me to take into consideration. We can make things work if I know in advance.
Please see the course Moodle site for a full description.
Schedule and Required Readings
Class I: Introductory Class and Syllabus Reading
Class 2: Traditional Jewish Society
Salo Baron, “Ghetto and Emancipation,” reprinted in Leo W. Schwartz, ed. The Menorah Treasury (Philadelphia 1964): 50 - 63.
Class 3: Enlightenment
Jacob Katz, Out of the Ghetto: The Social Background of Jewish Emancipation (New York 1978): 42-103. (Focus on pages 42-56)
Class 4: Emancipation
Hillary L. Rubinstein, Dan Cohn-Sherbok, “Enlightenment and emancipation in continental Europe, 1750-1880,” in The Jews in the Modern World: A History since 1750 (London 2002), 15-42.
Class 5: Racial Antisemitism
Jacob Katz, From Prejudice to Destruction: Anti-Semitism, 1700-1933 (Cambridge 1980): 1-10, 245-300.
Class 6: Zionism
Isaiah Friedman, “Theodor Herzl: Political Activity and Achievements,” in Israel Studies, vol. 9, no. 3 (Fall 2004): 46-79.
Class 7: Assimilation
Marsha Rozenblit, “The Dissolution of the monarchy and the crisis of Jewish identity, October 1918 - June 1919,” in Reconstructing a National Identity: The Jews of Habsburg Austria during World War I (Oxford, New York 2004): 128-161.
Class 8: Communal Genocide
Omer Bartov, Wartime Lies and Other Testimonies, in East European Politics & Societies 25:3 (2011): 486-511.
Class 9: The Postwar
Jan T. Gross, Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz. Essays in Historical Interpretation (New York 2007): 81-117
Class 10: Guest Lecture by Jelena Subotic & Daniel Levy
Class 11: Holocaust Memory
Michal Frankl, The Sheep of Lidice: The Holocaust and the Construction of Czech National History, in Bringing the Dark Past to Light: The Reception of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Europe, 166–94."?
Class 12: Final Paper
Examination
Active Participation: 30%
Elevator Pitch: 20%
Essay: 50%