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Last update: Hana Kubátová, M.A., Ph.D. (21.02.2024)
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 the 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 1 (Feb 22): Introductory Class and Syllabus Reading Class 2 (Feb 29): Traditional Jewish Society Salo Baron, “Ghetto and Emancipation,” reprinted in Leo W. Schwartz, ed. The Menorah Treasury (Philadelphia 1964): 50-63. Class 3 (Mar 7): 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 (Mar 14): 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 (Mar 21): Racial Antisemitism Jacob Katz, From Prejudice to Destruction: Anti-Semitism, 1700-1933 (Cambridge 1980): 1-10, 245-300. March 28: Public Holiday Class 6 (Apr 4): Zionism Isaiah Friedman, “Theodor Herzl: Political Activity and Achievements,” in Israel Studies, vol. 9, no. 3 (Fall 2004): 46-79. April 11: Reading Week/Pitch Your Project/No Class Class 7 (Apr 18): 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 (Apr 25): The Holocaust Yehuda Bauer, Rethinking the Holocaust (New Haven and London 2002): 1-13, 39-67. Class 9 (May 2): Communal Genocide Omer Bartov, Wartime Lies and Other Testimonies, in East European Politics & Societies 25:3 (2011): 486-511. Class 10 (May 9): The Postwar Jan T. Gross, Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz. Essays in Historical Interpretation (New York 2007): 81-117. Class 11 (May 16): Holocaust Memory Karen Auerbach, Review Essay: Holocaust Memory in Polish Scholarship, in AJS Review 35:1 (April 2011): 137-150. Class 12 (May 23): Final Essay Due
Examination Active Participation: 30% Feedback on Required Reading: 20% Essay: 50%
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