Yeshiva College Syllabi -- 2021 - 2022 courses (past versions for reference ONLY) -- JHI (Jewish History)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12202/6961

Syllabi are provided for general information about course scope and content. Syllabi are subject to change.

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    JHI 1400: Modern Jewish History
    (Yeshiva College, Yeshiva University, 2022-08) Karlip, Joshua
    COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course is a survey of the history of the Jews and Judaism in the modern age, from 1650 to the present. The course will examine the very different ways in which Jews reacted to modernity in Western, Central and Eastern Europe, the Ottoman Empire, America, and Israel. COURSE GOALS AND OBJECTIVES: After the completion of this course, students will have an understanding of the major events and movements of Jewish history in the modern era. These events and movements include: the definition of Jewish modernity and its differing features in different regions; the various religious movements that arose in nineteenth-century Central Europe; the cultural and social ferment in nineteenth-century Russia that led to the rise and spread of Zionism, Diaspora Nationalism, and socialism; the unique political and cultural positions of the Jews of the Habsburg Empire; the contrasting fate of Jews in the Soviet Union and the Polish Republic during the interwar era; the place of the Holocaust within the larger context of modern Jewish history; the interconnected but very different two major post-war Jewish communities of the United States and Israel. Through the written assignments, students will gain the skills to analyze both primary and secondary sources from an historical perspective.
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    Medieval Jewish-Christian Encounter
    (Yeshiva College, Yeshiva University, 2022-08) Levin, Chaviva
    COURSE DESCRIPTION: Jews and Christians encountered and responded to one another in medieval Europe in a variety of contexts and fashions, some of which were deliberate and conscious, others of which were less so. These encounters, complex and complicated as they were, had a significant impact on the experiences and cultures of both the Jewish minority and the Christian majority. This course aims to explore positive as well as negative encounters between Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages and to consider the changing position of Jews in Christian society along with Jewish responses to those changes.¶ We will look not only at how the majority Christian culture conceived of and related to Jews but will also focus on how the minority Jewish culture related to and constructed the majority culture in which it was embedded. One of the primary concerns of this course is to consider medieval Jews as actors and not solely as acted on. We will emphasize the reading of accounts written by medieval Jews and consider what they reflect about the contexts and concerns of their authors.¶ The historiography of the medieval Jewish-Christian encounter will be an additional area of focus of this course. In addition to consideration of the movement of the Jewish experience from the periphery to the center of medieval studies, this course will also examine contemporary historiographic trends in the study of medieval Jews and Christians, including the questions of Jewish acculturation, negative Jewish attitudes toward Christianity, and Jewish attraction to Christianity.¶ COURSE OBJECTIVES: In this course you will become knowledgeable about the range of Jewish experiences in the Middle Ages. You will also learn how historians try to make sense of the past.¶ This course will emphasize the processes by which historians try to understand the past. We will therefore focus significantly on primary sources, both visual and textual, produced by those whom we are trying to understand. You will learn how historians approach primary texts, consider what kinds of questions can be asked of texts, and explore how historians use evidence to construct a historical narrative. In other words, you will begin to think like a historian about the medieval Jewish experience.¶ Through the course’s written assignments you will gain proficiency in expressing yourself clearly and effectively in writing while you explore at first hand some of the issues confronted by historians.
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    HIS2141/JHI1508: History of the Holocaust
    (Yeshiva College, Yeshiva University, 2022-08) Zimmerman, Joshua; 0000-0001-6796-489X
    This course examines the fate of European Jewry between 1933 and 1945. We shall cover the rise and fall of the democratic Weimar Republic in the 1920s, the Nazi seizure of power, anti-Jewish policy and legislation in Nazi Germany, ghettoization in Nazi Europe, and the conception and implementation of the Final Solution during the Second World War. Additional topics will include the problem of the Judenrat, Jewish resistance, life in the ghettos and camps, the Jewish Question and public opinion in Nazi-occupied Europe, and the reactions of the Allies, the Church, and world Jewry to the Holocaust.
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    JHI 1341: Sepharad: The Jews of Medieval Spain
    (2020-09) Perelis, Ronnie
    This course will investigate the cultural history of the Jews of Spain (the Sephardim), from the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in 711 until the expulsion of 1492. Medieval Spain, with its vibrant Muslim and Jewish populations, was one of the most complex and culturally rich European societies of its time. It served as a bridge for intellectual, artistic and scientific imports from the east to the European north. Its experiment with convivencia –“the living together” of three different religions within the same society – was unheard of in pre-modern Europe. With convivencia as our lens, we will examine the possibilities and limitations of multi-cultural tolerance by studying the socio-political and cultural trajectory of the Sephardim and their Christian and Muslim neighbors. The course will explore the rich intellectual and artistic heritage of the Sephardim. We will read a wide range of Sephardic writing: the poets of the Andalusian Golden age, the neo-Aristotelian philosophers and scientists, travel diaries, converso dramatists and the music of the Aljamas as preserved in Ladino ballads. ___ Goals of the course: *Develop textual and analytical skills through careful engagement with primary sources *Empower the student to think critically, creatively and personally about the texts and their historical context *Challenge assumptions about religion and society in the medieval world *Examine the complexities and ambiguities of culture, society and identity *Deepen appreciation of Sephardic history *Use writing in a variety of formats to engage and think critically about the material. By writing about the primary and secondary sources we will refine our understanding and deepen our connection to the themes and questions central to this critical historical moment. IN THIS CLASS YOU ARE NOT A SPECTATOR YOU ARE AN ACTIVE PARTICIPANT IN YOUR INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT
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    HIS2141/JHI1508: History of the Holocaust
    (2019-09) Zimmerman, Joshua
    This course examines the fate of European Jewry between 1933 and 1945. We shall cover the rise and fall of the democratic Weimar Republic in the 1920s, the Nazi seizure of power, anti-Jewish policy and legislation in Nazi Germany, ghettoization in Nazi Europe, and the conception and implementation of the Final Solution during the Second World War. Additional topics will include the problem of the Judenrat, Jewish resistance, life in the ghettos and camps, the Jewish Question and public opinion in Nazi-occupied Europe, and the reactions of the Allies, the Church, and world Jewry to the Holocaust.
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    JHI3510 Writing Jewish History
    (2020-09) Olson, Jess
    ►We take Jewish history for granted. We assume that we know what we mean when we talk about history, but do we? As one of the longest “histories” of any group in the human family, Jewish history spans unimaginable epochs of time, physical locations that span the globe, and considerable diversity. So what does “the” history of the Jewish people look like? ►Of course there is no single answer to this question. But in this class we will take the question of what, exactly, it means to write Jewish history seriously as a historical question. Our purpose here is to uncover and examine many of the approaches and varieties of Jewish history over the entire span of the (recorded) history of the Jewish people. We will be paying particular attention to the ways in which understandings of history have developed both within the Jewish context and in relationship to the historical self-understanding of the many cultures in which Jews have been embedded. ►Functionally, our course will span the entirety of Jewish history from the closing of the canonization of Tanakh, through the Rabbinic and Ganoic periods, the Middle Ages, early modern period, and modern period, up to the present day. In terms of readings and texts, each week you will notice the readings divided between “primary” and “secondary” readings. You are responsible for the “secondary” readings on your own, while the primary readings we will be examining and discussing together in class.
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    JHI1510: Cultural History of Modern Israel
    (2020-09) Olson, Jess
    ►This course offers a history of the State of Israel. Not the history, but a history. Although a young country, Israel has been the focus of such intense scrutiny that it is an impossible task to cover all possible angles of investigation in one semester. As a country that has been the subject of an outsized amount of debate and argument, it is similarly impossible to give a “definitive” history of Israel. ►In this course we will approach understanding Israel by trying to understand the deep roots of the idea of the Jewish state through the acts, thoughts, and cultural production of the Zionists who first embraced the idea of a return to the historical homeland of the Jewish people as a modern national group. We then trace these ideas as they evolve, rapidly, into the foundational principles of Israel, and then into the basics of modern Israeli identity. Therefore, much of the focus in this class will be in the foundation of Zionism and the early state in depth, with a heavy focus on both the emergence and development of the Zionist movement. ►This course is unconventional in some ways. First of all, it is not a study of the Israeli-Arab conflict. Although, as an ever-present element of Israeli life since before the state, it is impossible to ignore, however in this course we will be focused primarily internally, on the history of Zionism and Israel as our focus. Likewise, this course is not a history of Israeli politics or military conflict, even though much historiography of the state is oriented around Israel’s political policies and the central wars of its short history: 1948, 1967, 1973, and so on. At the same time, towards the end of the semester, so much of the internal dynamics of Israeli life revolved around these international conflicts that they will provide useful signposts around which to organize our thinking.
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    JHI1340 Sepharad: The Jews of Medieval Spain (711-1492)
    (2020-09) Perelis, Ronnie
    ►This course will investigate the cultural history of the Jews of Spain (the Sephardim), from the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in 711 until the expulsion of 1492. Medieval Spain, with its vibrant Muslim and Jewish populations, was one of the most complex and culturally rich European societies of its time. It served as a bridge for intellectual, artistic and scientific imports from the east to the European north. Its experiment with convivencia –“the living together” of three different religions within the same society – was unheard of in pre-modern Europe. With convivencia as our lens, we will examine the possibilities and limitations of multi-cultural tolerance by studying the socio-political and cultural trajectory of the Sephardim and their Christian and Muslim neighbors. ►The course will explore the rich intellectual and artistic heritage of the Sephardim. We will read a wide range of Sephardic writing: the poets of the Andalusian Golden age, the neo-Aristotelian philosophers and scientists, travel diaries, converso dramatists and the music of the Aljamas as preserved in Ladino ballad.
"Jewish history on the menorah" by afagen is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0