JHIS 1301: Medieval Jewish History

Abstract

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Studying Jewish history provides students with an awareness of the different events that have befallen the Jewish people within the Land of Israel and in the countries of their sojourns in the Diaspora. Jewish history courses focus not only on events but also on intellectual history, major figures in the history of transmission of the Torah, and the development of halakhah and of customs. At times, the intellectual history is deeply connected to its historical context, such as customs that developed as a reaction to the Crusades, or the effect the advent of printing had on the study of Torah. Studying Jewish history therefore not only provides added background and meaning to customs and texts our students are familiar with but also provides the context they might be missing. Students also benefit from the context the study of Jewish history provides for other areas of Jewish studies, such as parshanut, with an added appreciation of when important commentators lived and what they might have been influenced by or reacting to in their time and in their writing.¶ Muslim and Christian cultures; and the attitudes Jews adopted toward those cultures. We will focus on considering the ways in which members of majority and minority cultures in a society interact and how they affect one another. Class discussions are an important component of this course.¶ 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.