The core course is Secular Jews from Spinoza to Seinfeld with the following as supporting courses: Modern Jewish Thought; Politics, Society and Culture in Israel; Love, Sex and Hebrew Texts; American Jewish Literature; Traces of Auschwitz: Representations of the Holocaust in Italian Cinema, Women, Gender and Judaism, Oral History: The Lived Experience of Those Involved in Jewish Immigration to Argentina, and Ethnography of Jewish Experience.
Secular Jews from Spinoza to Seinfeld
Professor Ted Merwin
This course traces the development of secular Judaism through an
analysis of key figures in Western Jewish thought and culture. We will
seek to understand how these figures have understood themselves and their place within the societies in which they lived.
We will examine the many forms that secular Judaism takes, and the
many different ways that secular Jews have found to relate to their
Jewish heritage. The course will conclude with a look of recent films
and television episodes that explore secular Jewish themes.
Course Outline:
1. Intro to Course: What is the “secular realm”?
2. Katz, Identity and Assimilation
3. Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
4. Goldstein, Betraying Spinoza
5. Goldstein, Betraying Spinoza
6. Meyer, Origins of the Modern Jew; Lesssing, Nathan the Wise
7. Common hour “human beat box” concert on Middle East peace
8. Mendelssohn, Jerusalem
9. Dinner/discussion on “Why Should Jews Believe in God?”
10. Mendelssohn, Jerusalem [PAPER #1 DUE]
11. Freud, Future of an Illusion
12. Common hour concert, “From the Shtetl to the Present”
13. Gay, Godless Jew
14. Gay, Godless Jew
15. Kafka, “Metamorphosis”
16. Kafka, “Letter to My Father”
17. Eve lecture, “The Jews of St. Louis”
18. Lazarus, poems [PAPER #2 DUE]
19. Schor, Emma Lazarus
20. Multicultural seder with Afro-Semitic Experience
21. Schor, Emma Lazarus
22. Herzl, Jewish State
23. Herzl, Jewish State
24. Cahan, “Yekl,” Rise of David Levinsky
25. Cohen, Tough Jews
26. Eve lecture on Kabbalah
27. Eve lecture on reparations to Holocaust survivors
28. Cohen, Tough Jews; Doctorow, Billy Bathgate
29. Odets, Awake and Sing!
30. Miller, Death of a Salesman
31. Mel Brooks, Blazing Saddles; Desser and Friedman article
32. Woody Allen, Annie Hall [PAPER #4 DUE]
33. AJIS Survey; Seinfeld episodes
34. Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes
Required Texts:
Rich Cohen, Tough Jews
Peter Gay, A Godless Jew
Rebecca Goldstein, Betraying Spinoza
Theodore Herzl, The Jewish State
Peter Levine, Ellis Island to Ebbets Field
Esther Schor, Emma Lazarus
Modern Jewish Thought
Prof. Eric Cytryn
This course will explore Jewish thought from the Enlightenment to the
present. Authors such as Moses Mendelssohn, Abraham Geiger, Leo
Pinsker, Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, Ahad Ha-Am, Martin Buber,
Mordecai Kaplan, A. I. Heschel, and Emil Fackenheim.
Politics, Society and Culture in Israel
Prof. Neil Diamant
This course provides students with an overview of the major politics,
social and cultural events that have shaped, and continue to shape,
modern Israel. In politics, we will deal with the origins of the
Zionist movement, political leadership, foreign relations, parties, the
electoral system and the Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab conflict
more broadly. We will also cover contemporary Israeli society, focusing
on the major cleavages in Israeli society
(secular vs. religious, right vs. left, Ashkenazi and Sephardim), civil
society, consumerism, as well as the impact of the Holocaust and the
role of the military in Israeli society (socialization of youth,
university life, reserve duty, etc.) The cultural component will center
largely on poets and authors (Ach'ad Ha'am, Lea Goldberg, Nathan
Alterman, David Grossman), and musicians (Shalom Hanoch, Arik Einstein,
Shlomo Artzi, Yehuda Poliker) who collectively have formed contemporary
Israeli culture. In the most general terms, the course is intended to
add more nuance and depth to the often one-dimensional portrayal of
Israel in the media (that of a society in constant warfare and
conflict) and provide students with the analytical tools to better
understand events in the Middle East.
Love, Sex and Hebrew Texts
Prof. Nitsa Kann
This course is a comprehensive study of masterpieces of Hebrew
literature in translation. This literary survey about love and sex from
different periods includes: Biblical love stories, the concept of love
and sexuality in Kabbalah, Rabbinic commentary and legends, literature
of the Middle Ages, and modern Hebrew literature of the early 20th
century to the present. Texts are approached from a secular,
literary-critical perspective.
American Jewish Literature
Prof. Ted Merwin
In this course, we will read poetry, drama, fiction and essays from a
variety of authors who write about the Jewish experience. Among the
writers we will study are Abraham Cahan, Bernard Malamud, Anne Roiphe,
Philip Roth, Neil Simon and Michael Chabon. We will examine multiple
perspectives of what it means to be Jewish in America.
Jews are known as the “people of the book,” and this has perhaps been nowhere so true as
in America, where Jewish writers have had a tremendous influence on
the course of twentieth century American literature. The works of
Jewish writers have often dealt with the conflict between being Jewish
and being American, between the experience of being an outsider and the
longing for full acceptance. This course will include a variety of
different types of literature, from novels about the immigrant
experience to short stories about present-day Jewish identity. We will
look at how different writers have grappled with the meaning of their
Jewishness in an open society that, while it presented fewer barriers
to religious expression than Jews had encountered throughout their
history, also provided more enticements to abandon age-old Jewish
belief and practice. As more secular forms of Judaism flourished in
this country, the reading and writing of Jewish literature has itself
become--for both Jews and non-Jews--an increasingly important way to
understand and explore Jewish culture.
Course Outline
1. Intro to Course: Meet and Greet
2. Aleichem’s Tevye stories
3. Aleichem (cont.)
4. Clarke Center discussion on Israel-Hezbollah War
5. Library discussion—Aleichem’s Tevye stories
6. Film screening—Hester Street
7. Cahan’s Rise of David Levinsky
8. Cahan (cont.)
9. Cahan (cont.)
10. Yezierska, Bread Givers
11. Yezierska (cont.)
12. Yezierska (cont.)
13. Library discussion—Yezierska’s Bread Givers
14. Simon, Bronx Primitive
15. Klezmer performance by Chopped Liver River Band
16. Simon, Bronx Primitive
17. Roiphe, 1185 Park Avenue
18. Grace Paley Reading/Talk on Campus
19. Roiphe (cont.)
20. Roiphe (cont.)
21. Common Hour on Israeli and Palestinian Dance
22. Library discussion—Roiphe’s 1185 Park Avenue
23. Roth, American Pastoral
24. Jewish Yoga Service by Rabbi Heather Altman
25. Jewish Yoga Service by Rabbi Heather Altman
26. Havdalah Service by Rabbi Heather Altman
27. Roth (cont.)
28. Library discussion—Roth’s American Pastoral
29. Malamud short stories
30. Malamud (cont.)
31. Common Hour with Sara Felder, lesbian Jewish juggler
32. Malamud (cont.)
33. Malamud (cont.)
34. Talk by Danya Ruttenberg, Jewish feminist scholar
35. Goldberg, Bee Season
36. Goldberg (cont.)
37. Goldberg (cont.)
38. Contemporary short stories—hand-out
39. Short stories (cont.)
40. Library discussion—Goldberg’s Bee Season
41. Course Wrap-Up
Required Texts:
Sholem Aleichem, Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories
Abraham Cahan, The Rise of David Levinsky
Myla Goldberg, Bee Season
Bernard Malamud, The Complete Stories
Anne Roiphe, 1185 Park Avenue
Phiip Roth, American Pastoral
Kate Simon, Bronx Primitive
Anya Yezierska, Bread Givers
Traces of Auschwitz: Representations of the Holocaust in Italian Cinema
Prof. Nicoletta Marini-Maio
The shocking images of the Holocaust cyclically re-emerge from remote
memories buried in the "grey zone" (Levi) of the twentieth century.
This is particularly true of Italian cinema, on which the Holocaust is
still projecting a disquieting shadow. What are the reasons of this
persistency? Are the Holocaust movies in some way related not only to
the historical past but also to the present of Italy? And how do they
differ from historical accounts? How does such history change depending
on time, place, and medium? This course intends to offer some tentative
answers to these questions--and raise new ones--through the analysis of
the representations of the Holocaust in Italian cinema. We will analyze
films by such directors as Roberto Benigni, Liliana Cavani, Vittorio De
Sica, Andrea & Antonio Frazzi, Alberto Negrin, Ferzan Ozpetek,
Gillo Pontecorvo, Ettore Scola, Ricky Tognazzi, Lina Wertmuller, and
others. The weekly screenings will be complemented by the reading of
Primo Levi's "If This Is a Man," Liana Millu's "Smoke over Birkenau,"
and a selection of secondary sources on film and Holocaust criticism.
Taught in English.
Women, Gender and Judaism
Prof. Andrea Lieber
This course examines issues of gender in Jewish religion and
culture of various historical periods. We will begin by looking at the
representation of women in the Bible and other classical Jewish texts.
We will spend some time trying to understand the highly differentiated
gender roles maintained by traditional Jewish culture, and then move on
to examine the role American feminism has played in challenging those
traditional roles. Some knowledge of Judaism and Jewish history is
helpful, but not required as prerequisite for this course.
Oral History: The Lived Experience of Those Involved in Jewish Immigration to Argentina
Professor S. Rose
outside myself
there is a world…
-- William Carlos Williams
Social science must reach the actual experiences and attitudes which constitute the full, live and active social reality beneath the formal organization of social phenomena. A social institution can be fully understood only if we do not limit ourselves to abstract study of its formal organization, but also analyze the way in which it appears in the personal experience of various members of the group and follow the influence it has upon their lives (W.I. Thomas).
Believing, with Max Weber, that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning (Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, 1973:5).
Oral history gives history back to people in their own words... and gives voice to their experience. It brings history into and out of the community (Paul Thompson).
Course Description:
While globalization has created an increasingly interdependent world, diasporas have long dispersed and connected people and communities across great distances. One of the oldest and best known is the Jewish diaspora. This course will focus on Jewish immigration to Argentina which began after the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492. The greatest waves, however, came during and after the mid-Nineteenth Century. Today, approximately 300,000 Jews live in Argentina, down from 910,000 in the early 1960s. Argentina's Jewish population is the largest Jewish community in Latin America, the third-largest in the Americas (after that of the United States and Canada), and the sixth-largest in the world. Approximately 80% of the Jewish population in Argentina is Ashkenazi and another 15-20% Sephardic.
This course focuses on the life histories of people involved in Jewish immigration to Argentina and their descendants. Through readings, film, and fieldwork, we will examine the sources and consequences of migration, and the impact on individuals, families, and communities as Jews settled into the receiving communities of both rural and urban Argentina. After studying the history of Jewish immigration to Argentina and oral history methodology in the fall, we will begin our fieldwork in Buenos Aires in early January. Students will have the opportunity to interview a range of people from different generations and visit various Jewish organizations and synagogues. In addition to having homestays in Buenos Aires, we will travel to the rural areas of the Colonies, including Entre Rios.
In the spring, when we return to campus, students will process and analyze the interviews we have conducted. Final projects may include research papers, multi-media websites, power point presentations, and video documentaries that meet the needs of community partners and student interests. Tapes, transcripts, and analyses will then be archived at the Community Studies Center and as appropriate in the community organizations with which we will be working.
Required Texts:
Avni, Haim. Argentina and the Jews: A History of Jewish Immigration.
Warren and Karner, Discovering Qualitative Methods: Field Research, Interviews, and Analysis. Roxbury, 2005.
Yow, Recording Oral History. AltaMira Press, 2005 (either edition is fine – and a number are on reserve at CSC)
ER = Electronic Reserves: a number of required articles are on Blackboard under course documents.
Recommended and on Reserve:
Agosin, Marjorie (ed.), Memory, Oblivion, and Jewish culture in Latin America. University of Texas Press, 2005.
Gerchunoff' Los gauchos judíos/Parricide on the Pampas.
Shua, Ana María. El libro de los recuerdos (The Book of Memories) - individual and collective memory of the immigrant experience.
Sofer, Eugene. From Pale to Pampa: A Social History of the Jews in Buenos Aires.
Weisbrot, Robert. The Jews of Argentina: From the Inquisition to Peron.
Zadoff, A Century of Argentinean Jewry: In Search of a New Model of National Identity. IWJC, 2000.
Films:
Judios en el Espacio (Jews in Space)
Legado, Legacy
Los gauchos judíos (The Jewish Gauchos)
Those Who Lived, Punez from Spielberg’s “Broken Silence”
7 Dias in El Once (7 Days in El Once)
Preliminary Class Schedule for Fall:
Intro to Course and Research Agenda
Start reading A Century of Argentinean Jewry: In Search of a New Model of National Identity (short book on reserve in library)
History of Jewish Immigration to Argentina: The Colonies
Read:
ER: Gerchunoff, Parricide on the Pampas: Introduction and one selection of your choosing (whole book on reserve, and Intro and 4 selections on BB)
ER:“Letargo” (also in library in Agosin, Memory, pp: 130-145
On web: Chapter 1 “Social Memory” from Freidenberg, The Invention of the Jewish Gaucho: Villa Clara and the Construction of Argentine Identity (University of Texas Press, 2009). To read go to: http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/exfreinv.html and/or book on reserve).
Screen in class: Los gauchos judíos (The Jewish Gauchos)
History of Jewish Immigration to Argentina: The Colonies
Read: Weisbrot, Intro pp: 3-11, 38-56
Avni, Ch 2: “The Formative Years 1876-1896”
See: http://www.geocities.com/bargfamily/argentina1.html (just part 1 - quick read/overview)
Intro to Oral History Epistemology and Methodology
Read: Paul Thompson, Ch.1 from Voices of the Past.
Yow, Ch 1: “The In-Depth Interview” from Recording Oral History
Discovering Qualitative Methods” p: 21-25
Research Design and Constructing Interview Schedules:
Brief Introduction of preliminary ORT/Dickinson interview instrument – to be adapted and revised by the class according to individual or small group research interests
An Overview of Jewish Immigration to Argentina from Russian Contexts
Read: Avni, Ch 3: pp: 62-66, 76-82, 91-92
ER: Sofer, “The Pale”
H(andout): Book review of Sofer (from Modern Judaism: 341-3).
Moving Beyond the Interview: Research for Production and Use
“Legacy/Legado: Memories of the Jewish colonization in Argentina” In August 1889 the steamship Wesser docked in Argentina with the first group of Jewish immigrants who were escaping the Tsarist regime in Russia with its pogroms. Mainly in Yiddish with English sub-titles.
(Clip from Pat doc)
Jewish Immigration from Europe during the Holocaust Years
Luis Puenzo and Steven Spielberg, “Some Who Lived; Algunos Que Vivieron”
Weaves together testimonies from Holocaust survivors now living in Argentina and Uruguay with archival and modern footage.
Read: Avni, Ch 6: pp: 170-195 and Epilogue
ER: Stein, “Trauma and Origins: Post-Holocaust Genealogists and the Work of Memory”
Screening of Jews in Space/Judios en el Espacio at CSC and then welcome dinner for Laura Benadiba at Professor Rose’s house.
1:30-2:45 Ethnography of Jewish Experience Class
(Argentine Oral Historian Laura Benadiba: “The Varied History of Jewish Immigration to and Reception in Argentina”)
3-4:30 Analysis of Oral History of Oral History Interviews on Jewish Immigration (first generation) from the ORT collection. Each student will be responsible for presenting an analysis/critique of one interview (either in Spanish or in English depending on linguistic skills – we will have transcribed the interviews into Spanish and translated them into English). Focus of the analysis and presentation to the class should be on both substance/content and on methodology.
Assignment #1 due for Group A.
Read: Yow, Life History: 172-187
In Ethnography of Jewish Experience Benadiba will compare and contrast Jewish rural and urban life, focusing on the Colonies and Buenos Aires, and C19th Sephardic Jewish Life) “7 Days in El Once”
3-4:30 Analysis of Oral History of Oral History Interviews on Jewish Immigration (first generation) from the ORT collection. Each student will be responsible for presenting an analysis/critique of one interview (either in Spanish or in English depending on linguistic skills – we will have transcribed the interviews into Spanish and translated them into English). Focus of presentation to the class should be on both substance/content and on methodology. See assignments 1 & 2. Assignment #1 due for Group B; Assignment #2 due for Group A
Interview Workshop:
How to Interview, Ethics, Consent Forms, and Archive Deposit Sheets
Additional Questions and Translation
Read: Yow, Chs. 2,3,4 and Appendix 253-54, 265-266, 270
ER: Patton, “On Interviewing”
Assignment #2 due for Group
Continue Interview Workshop
Video Filming Workshop
DQM on Fieldwork 57-61
DQM, Ch 5: On Writing Fieldwork Notes – useful for journals
ER: Jackson, Fieldworking
Sofer, “The City” – please print and take a copy of this with you to Buenos Aires – we’ll use it there
Assignment #3: Midterm Research Paper (26%)
Assignment #1 (12 pts)
A. Summary Profile of Your Narrator: both a written (1-2 pages) and oral presentation to the class that provides an overview of who the person is, and their experience as a Jewish person in the process of immigrating, settling and living in Argentina.
B. An Analysis of the Interview: Please highlight parts of the interview transcript that you find particularly interesting and revealing. What do you want to know more about? What is unclear? What is your assessment of the interview? – highlight some of the strong points of the interview - which were particularly good/valuable questions – follow-up and probing questions? Where might the interviewer have done a better job of asking questions? We are interested here both in content and methodology. Each student should project and discuss their highlighted interview transcript.to the class.
Assignment #2 (12%)
Indexing of an Interview: Following Yow’s guidelines, choose one interview to index, providing socio-historical and cultural context for the interview. Make at least 8 commentaries drawing upon readings you have done for class (half of these may come from other sources).
Assignment #3 Research Paper #1 and Proposal (26%)
For the final paper (7-8 pages) plus a bibliography of at least 4 sources 3 of which must be from class, you may choose to do one (1) of the following:
1) An in-depth analysis of one interview placed in socio-historical and cultural perspective; or
2) A comparative analysis of 2 interviews placed in socio-historical and cultural perspective.
or
3) A thematic paper that draws substantively from at least two interviews.
In addition, you should also present a short (1 page) research proposal of what you would like to focus on in your interviews in Argentina.
Preliminary Schedule for Winterim and Spring
Buenos Aires – Fly Newark to BA – mid-day January 4th arriving in BA early am on 5th
Jan 5 -lunch and then settle in with host families
Jan 6 -meet at ORT for breakfast and orientation
Entre Rios – Colonies Trip
Jan 20 -Fly BA-Newark Evening arriving in Newark morning of the 21st
Research Journals
As part of the research process, you should keep a series of journals/notebooks which record how your work is progressing. You may want to purchase three separate journals that will enable you to keep track of and analyze your research as you proceed throughout the semester or you may combine these into one under the condition that they address all three components. These three journals are the “raw data” file: a methodological log, and an analytical journal. The raw data file should contain actual observations, interview schedule, field notes and transcripts. The methodological log should document how the research process is going, how your role as researcher is evolving, and what questions and techniques you tried and how people responded. Entries should be made weekly at a minimum. The analytical journal provides you with the opportunity to ponder, question and ultimately organize your findings. Emerging patterns or themes in your research should be addressed: what themes/categories are emerging? What hypotheses are you formulating? What evidence supports/challenges/negates a specific hypothesis? How are your research questions related to other important aspects of the organization/subject you are studying? What variables are interrelated and how?
Spring Semester
Week 1 – deposit and process tapes, consent forms, and archive deposit sheets – all due at CSC by Monday afternoon 4pm..
Begin transcribing interviews.
Week 2
Transcription and Translation of Interviews – they will be posted on BB as we process them.
Read: Yow, pp: 227-233
Weisbrot, The Community pp:257-83
Fieldwork Reflections (2-3 pages) and Journals due
Video Editing Workshop for those interested
Week 3 – Analysis of Interviews – Presentation in Class of one Narrator Profile and discussion of interview (Group A)
Week 4 – Analysis of Interviews – Presentation in Class of one Narrator Profile and discussion of interview (Group B)
Week 5 – Research Proposals Due 1 page
Discussion of Research Proposals with reference to specific interviews (be prepared to discuss at least two interviews in relation to your final project)
Read: DQM: Ch. 9: Analyzing Qualitative Data: Fieldnotes, InterviewTranscripts, Images, and Documents
Ch. 10: “Writing the Research Report”
Week 6 – Analyzing Interviews
Research and Readings as relevant
Week 7 – Analyzing Interviews
Research and Readings as relevant
Week 8 – Analyzing Interviews
Research and Readings as relevant
Final Research Papers
Final Copy at CSC..
FINAL DRAFTS and RESEARCH PAPERS:
*Abstract
Focus of study and guiding questions
Literature Review
Methods - sample
Findings - Discussion and Analysis
Conclusion
Bibliography
*Attach Interview Schedule
* Reflections of Self and Study
Note: * do not need to include in draft.
Ethnography of Jewish Experience
Prof. Shalom Staub
Course Overview:
Judaism is commonly studied as a religion, but this course will use the lens of cultural history and ethnography to explore a series of core questions relevant to Jewish experience. We will explore Judaism as lived experience, shifting our attention from a set of normative beliefs and practices to Jewish culture, or more accurately, Jewish cultures. Our guiding questions will include—
• What does it mean to “be Jewish”?
• Is there a “Jewish culture”?
• What is common to Jewish cultural experiences across time and place?
• How might we understand the variability and local adaptations of Jewish life?
• Is “tradition” a useful concept, or specifically, how does the academic study of “tradition” differ from the everyday use of the term?
• How have Jews variously encountered and constructed the “Other,” both within and outside the Jewish community?
• How does this approach to Jewish cultural experience inform our understanding of contemporary “secular” Jewish identity?
We will search for themes and cultural processes underlying the many forms of Jewish life and cultural experience against a backdrop of three millennia of Jewish experience—from pastoral and agricultural roots to modern urban experience, from Middle Eastern origins to a Diaspora experience stretching across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas.
This year’s course is a pre-requisite to Sociology 313, Oral History and Jewish Immigration to Latin America (˝ credit in Fall 2009, Winterim in Buenos Aires with ˝ credit in Spring 2010). Sociology 313 will focus on Jewish immigration to Argentina, engaging students in the collection and analysis of oral histories with members of Jewish communities in and around Buenos Aires.
Learning Objectives:
1. Gain familiarity with an ethnographic approach to Jewish culture.
2. Gain understanding of the variation in Jewish life across time and space.
3. Recognize recurring patterns and processes in Jewish cultural experience.
4. Ability to examine Jewish rituals, customs and practices as embedded in specific cultural-historical contexts.
5. Closely examine a variety of Jewish cultural “texts.”
Required Books:
Biale, David. Cultures of the Jews, Volume 1. New York: Schocken Books, 2002.
Goldberg, Harvey. Jewish Life in Muslim Libya. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.
Lowenstein, Steven M. The Jewish Cultural Tapestry: International Jewish Folk Traditions. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Marcus, Ivan. Rituals of Childhood: Jewish Acculturation in Medieval Europe. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.
Sered, Susan Starr. Women as Ritual Experts: The Religious Lives of Elderly Jewish Women in Jerusalem. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Class Schedule/Topics/Assignments:
Week 1: —Ethnography of Jewish Experience: A Road Map
Course Overview
Video: The Tribe; other film excerpts
Being “Jewish” in 2009
Video: A Jew is Not One Thing
Building a Framework for Studying Jewish Experience
Discussion of David Biale, “Toward a Cultural History of the Jews” in Cultures of the Jews.
Week 2: —Biblical Origins: Exploring Cultural Processes at the Dawn of “Jewish” Experience
Discussion of Ilana Pardes, “Imagining the Birth of Ancient Israel: National Metaphors in the Bible,” in Cultures of the Jews.
Discussion of Ronald Hendel, “Israel Among the Nations: Biblical Culture in the Ancient Near East,” in Cultures of the Jews.
Week 3: —Judaism Emergent: From Israelite to Jewish
Discussion of Eric Myers, “Jewish Culture in Greco-Roman Palestine,” in Cultures of the Jews.
FIRST FIELDWORK ASSIGNMENT: POST YOUR INDIVIDUAL PROFILES
Discussion of Isaiah Gafni, “Babylonian Rabbinic Culture,” in Cultures of the Jews.
Week 4: Jewish Geography: Folk Tradition, Language, and Religious Practice
Discussion of Lowenstein, The Jewish Cultural Tapestry, Chapter 1: Folk Traditions Chapter 2: Regional Cultures
Discussion of Lowenstein, Chapter 3: Jewish Languages, Chapter 5: Religious Practice
FIRST FIELDWORK ASSIGNMENT: SUBMIT YOUR 2 PAGE ANALYSIS OF “WHAT BEING JEWISH MEANS” BASED ON READING THE COLLECTED PROFILES ON THE MOODLE FORUM.
Week 5: Jewish Folk Traditions… Overview
Discussion of Lowenstein, Chapter 6: Cuisine, Chapter 7: Costume, Lowenstein, Chapter 8: Music
Week 6: Exploring Minhag
Discussion of Shalom Sabar, “Childbirth and Magic: Jewish Folklore and Material Culture” In Cultures of the Jews
Week 7: Ritual as “text”: Close Reading of Initiation Rituals
Discussion of Ivan Marcus, Rituals of Childhood: Jewish Acculturation in Medieval Europe.
ESSAY ASSIGNMENT #1 DUE
FIRST 3 REFLECTIVE WRITING POSTINGS MUST BE MADE TO THE COURSE BLOG
Week 8: Gendered Domains: Ethnography of Religious Learning—Experiences of Ashkenazic Jewish Men
Discussion of Samuel Heilman, The People of the Book: Drama, Fellowship and Religion.
• Chapter 1: Looking into Lernen: An Introduction into the Talmud Study Circle
• Chapter 3: Cultural Performance
Week 9: Gendered Domains: Ethnography of Domesticated Judaism—Ritual Expertise and Experiences of Kurdish and Yemenite Jewish Women
Discussion of Susan Starr Sered, Women as Ritual Experts: The Religious Lives of Elderly Jewish Women in Jerusalem, Introduction and Chapters 1-3
Discussion of Sered, Chapters 4-7
Week 10: Life Cycles : Marriage in Jewish Cultures
Discussion of Harvey Goldberg, “Marriage,” in Jewish Passages: Cycles of Jewish Life
Guest: Susan Leviton, Ketubbah artist/calligrapher
Reading: “Ketubbah” in Encylopaedia Judaica”
Shalom Staub, “Creativity and Personal Vision in American Jewish Folk Arts”
Week 11: Community Case Study: Libyan Jewish Experience
Discussion of Harvey Goldberg, Jewish Life in Muslim Libya: Rivals and Relatives, Introduction and Chapters 1-4
Discussion of Goldberg, Jewish Life in Muslim Libya, Chapters 5-8
Week 12: Community Case Study: Secularity and Religiosity in the Argentine Jewish Experience
Guest Speaker: Laura Benadiba, ORT Oral History Project, Buenos Aires: Immigration to Argentina: Creating Jewish Identity in Buenos Aires
Read: Natasha Zaretsky, "Singing for Social Change: Nostalgic Memory and the Struggle for Belonging in a Buenos Aires Yiddish Chorus," In Jeffrey Lesser and Raanan Rein, editors, Rethinking Jewish-Latin Americans, 2008.
Shari Jacobson, “Modernity, Conservative Religious Movements, and the Female Subject: Newly Ultraorthodox Sephardi Women in Buenos Aires,” American Anthropologist 2006.
Viewing: Seven Days in el Once
Guest Speaker: Laura Benadiba, ORT Oral History Project, Buenos Aires: Immigration to Argentina: Creating Jewish Identity in the Rural Colonies
Read: The following stories from Alberto Gerchunoff’s Los gauchos judios, from Edna Aizenberg’s Parricide on the Pampa?: Genesis, Siesta, The Herdsman, Death of Rabi Abraham, The Poet, The Anthem
Optional supplemental reading for students in the Argentine Jewish Mosaic:
David Schers, “Culture, Identity, and Community”
Leonardo Senkman, “Argentine Culture and Jewish Identity” (Chapters in Judith Laikin Elkin and Gilbert W. Merkx, editors, The Jewish Presence in Latin America, 1987)
RESEARCH PROPOSALS DUE
Week 13: Reading Material Culture: Mezuzah, Menorah and More
Discussion of Samuel Heilman, "Jews and Judaica: Who Owns and Buys What?" In Walter P. Zenner, editor, Persistence and Flexibility: Anthropological Perspectives on the American Jewish Experience (1988)
Week 14: Jewish Cultural Memory in Secular Contexts
Survival in the Face of Mythical and Real Enemies
Discussion of:
Eli Yassif, "Introduction: Modern Jewish Culture as a System of Myths," In Glenda Abramson, editor, Modern Jewish Mythologies, 2000.
“Masada,” In Yael Zerubavel, Chapter 5: "Masada," and selected excerpts from Chapter 8: "The Rock and the Vow," In Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition,” 1995.
Holocaust in Memory and Identity Formation
Discussion of:
Jonathan Webber, “Lest We Forget! The Holocaust in Jewish Historical Consciousness and Modern Jewish Identities,” In Abramson, Modern Jewish Mythologies
Week 15: Going Elsewhere to Find Oneself
Discussion of Harvey Goldberg, “Pilgrimage and Creating Identities,” in Jewish Passages: Cycles of Jewish Life
Student Research Presentations
FINAL 3 REFLECTIVE WRITING POSTINGS TO THE COURSE BLOG
Final paper is due.
Fieldwork:
Consistent with the focus of this course, it is important for you to experience researching and analyzing lived Jewish experience. Toward that end, you will each conduct “fieldwork” through interviewing or observing. You will have three fieldwork assignments.
Fieldwork Assignment #1: Over the first 2 weeks of the course, I want you to conduct three short interviews with individuals who identify themselves as Jewish. (You should expect your interview to last roughly 15-20 minutes; longer if you desire.) The subject of your interview is to be, what does “being Jewish” mean to you? In your interview, explore how this individual expresses "being Jewish" in his/her life. Be sure to collect basic demographic data: name, age, gender, place of birth, etc. Think about “open-ended” questions that will encourage your narrators to express themselves in their own terms, and then think about being ready to ask follow-up questions to explore their responses in more detail.
You may conduct these interviews on campus with students or faculty, and you may use your extended network of family, friends, and contacts. The only restrictions are that you must select a varied group of individuals (i.e., not all students, not all family members, etc.) and you must conduct the interview orally. You should record your interview, though you are not required to transcribe it. Having the recording will allow you to review the interview for details. (Audio recorders are available for borrowing from Academic Technology Services in the basement of Bosler Hall.)
After you conduct your interviews, write up 3 profiles (2-3 paragraphs: 1st paragraph giving basic information about the person, 1-2 paragraphs summarizing how this person thinks about being Jewish, and how this identity plays out in their life. Post these profiles to the Moodle Forum.
Read the full collection of individual profiles posted by your fellow students, and use them as the basis for a mini-ethnography of Jewish “identity" as seen through the eyes of these interviewees. What are the themes and issues that emerge in a close reading of these narratives? How do these issues/themes connect with issues that we’ve begun to explore through readings and class discussions? Target length: 2-3 pages.
Fieldwork assignments #2 and #3. You will conduct interviews and/or observations to research additional particular topics. Select two from the following list. These are all very broad topics, and you have quite a bit of latitude as to how you want focus your research question. Focusing your fieldwork will prove to be helpful. Lowenstein’s The Jewish Cultural Tapestry will give you a background and context for all of these topics, and your ethnographic essay should present your research in this broader context. Target length: 3-4 pages.
• Jewish language
• Jewish customs and practices (life/year cycles)
• Jewish folk beliefs
• Jewish music
• Jewish material culture
• Jewish food
Reflective Writing: Entries to Course Blog
Throughout the semester, each student will contribute a minimum of six entries on the Course Blog. You might choose to reflect on class discussions, to explain why a particular reading is particularly interesting to you, to raise questions, to apply aspects of the course discussion to your personal experiences, to make connections between different strands of the course, to explore new ideas, or for similar purposes. Entries should be approximately 1.5-2 pages. At least 3 must be submitted before October 15th, the last class before Fall Pause. The remainder will be due by the last day of class.
This is a public blog, so you are writing with the immediate audience of me and your fellow students, and potentially a much broader audience of folks who are interested in Jewish ethnography. As with blogging generally, you are writing to express yourself and to interact with others. Look for opportunities to read and comment on other students’ blog posts.
Mid-term Integrative Essay: In this course, we will be discussing recurring patterns and cultural processes that characterize Jewish experiences. Choose one such cultural pattern or process, and discuss it in relation to multiple Jewish contexts—from different time periods and geographic locations.
The purpose of this assignment is for you to integrate and synthesize materials we have covered in the course to this point, and explore common cultural patterns/processes from one historical/geographic context to others. To adequately complete this assignment, you will need to be able demonstrate your familiarity with the course literature we have covered to this point. In-text (Author, page #) citations are required. Target length: 5 pages. Submit to me electronically by 10/12.
Final Paper: Analyzing a Cultural Text (Choice of fieldwork with relevant library research, or library research alone).
Through this course you have been exposed to a wide variety of cultural “texts”: written texts, and events, customs, images, artifacts, beliefs and fieldwork as “texts.” Choose a Jewish cultural text (a topic in the ethnography of Jewish experience) that particular interests you—which could be historical or contemporary from any geographic location of interest, and based in library/archival, electronic or fieldwork sources. Develop a “close reading”—an ethnographic analysis—of your chosen text in the context of the broader ethnographic literature on Jewish experience. Target length: 7 pages. Citations to the literature required.
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