The University of Florida is offering several courses: History of Modern Jewish Political Movements, Secular Jewish Culture, Jewish Identity in Literature, History of the Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe, Motherhood in Modern Hebrew Fiction, and War in Israeli Film and Culture.

History of Modern Jewish Political Movements
Dr. Simon Rabinovitch

Course Objectives:

What is Jewish politics? Is it participation by Jews in non-Jewish political institutions? The creation of universal political philosophies by Jews? The creation of self-defined Jewish political ideologies? Internal Jewish debate about Jewish society? All, some, or none of the above?

This course is intended to introduce students to the history of Jewish political ideologies, groups, movements, and parties in the modern world. To answer the question what is Jewish politics we examine issues of Jewish integration, national self-consciousness, and political mobilization. The course begins by examining the historical context for European Jewry’s political transformation. Students will then be introduced to the wide breadth of Jewish political philosophies and movements that emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Finally, we will follow these movements to America and Israel. Although the course moves more or less chronologically, lectures are organized thematically. Each lecture examines one aspect of the modern Jewish political experience. It is hoped that by the end of the course students will achieve an understanding of the historical forces that influenced how Jews and non-Jews viewed their political interactions with one another, and an appreciation for the range of Jewish solutions to the problems of the modern world and the place of Jews in it.

Texts:

Available for purchase at Goerings Book Store (1717 NW 1st Ave.):
Ezra Mendelsohn ed. Essential Papers on Jews and the Left (New York, 1997).
Jehuda Reinharz and Anita Shapira eds. Essential Papers on Zionism (New York, 1996)
Arthur Hertzberg ed. The Zionist Idea.
All additional reading are on webct and library reserve and are indicated in the syllabus by *.

Course Schedule and Assignments:

1. Introduction to the course
Part I – Jewish Politics before Jewish Politics
2. European Jewry at the End of the Eighteenth Century: Political Structure and Legal Status
3. European Jewry in the Nineteenth Century: Religion, Nation, Race?
Readings: Shmuel Ettinger in A History of the Jewish People, H. H. Ben-Sasson ed. (Cambridge, MA, 1997), 800-852.*
4. Jews in the Russian Empire in the Nineteenth Century

Part II – Autoemancipation

5. Moses Hess and the Intellectual Origins of Zionism and Jewish Socialism
Readings: Hand-out on “The Advent of the ‘isms.’” Hertzberg, 116-139. [Optional: A detailed mini-biography of Hess appears in Mendelsohn, 21-57].
6. Utopian Socialism and National Consciousness: The Am Olam and Bilu Movements
Readings: Alexander Orbach, “The development of the Russian Jewish community, 1881-1903,” in Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History, John Klier and Shlomo Lambroza ed. (Cambridge, 1992).*
7. Peretz Smolenskin and Moshe Leib Lilienblum
Readings: Hertzberg, 143-157, 167-177.
8. Leon Pinsker, the Lovers of Zion, and the First Aliyah
Readings: Hertzberg, 179-198. Reinharz, 63-93.
Part III – Jews and Socialism
9. Jews and European Socialism: Marx, Lassalle, Liberman
Readings: Mendelsohn, 58-77. [Optional: A short biography of the Menshevik leader Iulii Martov’s early years in Mendelsohn, 275-299]
10. The Bund and the Creation of a Jewish Labor Movement in the Russian Empire
Readings: Ezra Mendelsohn, “The Russian Jewish Labor Movement and Others,” YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Science 14 (1969): 87-98.* Vladimir Medem, “The Youth of a Bundist,” in The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe, Lucy Dawidowicz ed. (Syracuse, 1996), 426-434.*
11. Austrian Social Democracy and the Jews
Readings: Karl Renner “State and Nation” (1899), in National Cultural Autonomy and its Contemporary Critics, Ephraim Nimni ed. (New York, 2005).* [Optional: Mendelsohn, 483-528]
Part IV – Zionist Ideology and Politics
12. Political Zionism: Herzl and Nordau
Readings: Hertzberg, 201-245.
13. Spiritual Zionism: Ahad Ha’am
Readings: Hertzberg, 249-277. Ahad Ha’am, “The Spiritual Revival,” in Selected Essays of Ahad Ha-‘Am, Leon Simon trans. (New York, 1970), 253-305.*
14. Zionism in Crisis: 1903-1906
Readings: Reinharz, 119-132. Monty Noam Penkower, “The Kishinev Pogrom of 1903: A Turning Point in Jewish History.” Modern Judaism 24, no. 3 (October 2004): 187-225 (available on Project Muse).*
15. Marxist and Socialist Zionism
Readings: Hertzberg, 331-366. [Optional: A detailed mini-biography of Ber Borokhov appears in Mendelsohn, 122-144] 16. The Second Aliyah
Readings: Reinharz, 371-421, 454-472.
17. Revisionist Zionism: Jabotinsky
Readings: Reinharz, 544-566.
Part V – Alternatives to Zion
18. Jews and Russian Liberalism/Russian Liberalism and the Jews
Readings: Benjamin Nathans, “The Other Modern Jewish Politics: Integration and Modernity in Fin de Siècle Russia,” in The Emergence of Modern Jewish Politics, Zvi Gitelman ed. (Pittsburgh, 2003): 20-34.* Henryk Sliozberg, “A Good Russian – A Good Jew," in The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe, Lucy Dawidowicz ed. (Syracuse, 1996), 470-473.*
19. Autonomism: Simon Dubnov and the Folkspartey
Readings: Simon Dubnow, Nationalism and History, Koppel S. Pinson ed. (New York, 1970), 100-115, 131-142, 155-166, 182-191.*
20. Yiddish Nationalism (Yiddishism)
Readings: David Fishman, The Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture (Pittsburgh, 2005), 18-61.*
20. The Territorialist Movement and Jewish Agricultural Settlement in Australia, Argentina, and the United States
21. Enter the Orthodox: The Mizrahi Movement and Agudat Yisrael
Readings: Gershon Bacon, The Politics of Tradition (Jerusalem, 1996), 22-46.*
22. Midterm examination
Part VI – Jewish Politics and Crisis
23. “The Politics of Jewish Liberation”: Jewish Parties and Mass Politics in Russia
Readings: Shmarya Levin, “In the First Russian Duma,” in The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe, Lucy Dawidowicz ed. (Syracuse, 1996), 473-482.*
Vladimir Levin, “Politics at the Crossroads – Jewish Parties and the Second Duma Elections 1907.” Leipziger Beiträge zur jüdischen Geschichte und Kultur 2 (2004): 129- 146.*
24. Jewish Politics in World War I: Diplomacy and Autonomy
Readings: Reinharz, 587-616. Steven Zipperstein, “The Politics of Relief: The Transformation of Russian Jewish Communal Life During the First World War.” Studies in Contemporary Jewry 4 (1988): 22-40.*
25. Jews and the Russian Revolution
Readings: Mendelsohn, 300-321. Shmuel Ettinger, “The Jews in Russia at the Outbreak of the Revolution,” in The Jews in Soviet Russia Since 1917, Lionel Kochan ed. (Oxford, 1970).*
Part VII – The Interwar Period
26. Jews and Communism/Communism and the Jews
Readings: Altshuler, Mordechai. “The Attitude of the Communist Party of Russia to Jewish National Survival, 1918-1930.” YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Science vol. 14 (1969): 68-86.*
27. Jewish Politics and Minority Rights in the Wake of World War I: An Overview
28. Jewish Politics in Independent Poland and the Baltic States
Readings (for 31 October - 5 November): Reinharz, 171-190. Antony Polonsky, “The New Jewish Politics and Its Discontents,” and Gershon Bacon, “Agudat Yisrael and the Zionist Movement in Interwar Poland,” in The Emergence of Modern Jewish Politics, Zvi Gitelman ed. (Pittsburgh, 2003), 35-53 and 85-94.*
29. German Zionism
Readings: Reinharz, 268-297.
30. The New Yishuv in Palestine
Readings: Reinharz, 473-508.
Part VIII – The New World
31. The Jewish Labor Movement in America
Readings: Mendelsohn, 322-357.
32. Jewish Communal Politics in Canada, the United States, and Argentina
33. American Zionism
Readings: Reinharz, 318-368.
Part IX – Israel
34. The Labor Movement in Israel: Politics of the Yishuv and Early State
Readings (for 26-28 November): Mendelsohn, 198-235.
35. Revisionist Zionism in Israel and the Politics of the Discontented
36. Religious Zionism in Israel
Readings: Aviezer Ravitzky, “’The Revealed End’: Messianic Religious Zionism,” in idem, Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism (Chicago, 1996), 79-144.*
37. Soviet Jewry, the Refusenik Movement, and Emigration from the USSR
Readings: Mendelsohn, 440-482.
38. The End of Jewish Politics?

Secular Jewish Culture

Course Description:

In their encounter with modernity, Jews confronted unprecedented challenges that required them to redefine themselves in non-traditional ways. Central to this process of rearticulating Jewish identity was the production of a new body of Jewish texts remarkable in its heterogeneity. This class explores the key texts of Jewish culture as it developed outside the boundaries of religious life and forms. Throughout the course we read selections from a range of sources from within Jewish cultural environments in order to orient ourselves towards the various expressions of Jewish history, politics, literature, and art. No prior coursework is required.

Syllabus:

1. First meeting
2. Jack Kugelmass
Martin Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Civilizations. Pp155-195.
3. Leah Hochman
Solomon Maimon, An Autobiography. Pp 1-53
4. Leah Hochman
Solomon Maimon, An Autobiography. Pp. 59-93; 187-220.
5. Robert Kawashima
Samuel I & II
6. Robert Kawashima
Samuel I & II
7. Gwynn Kessler,
“God Dictates, Moses Composes,” and “Rabbis as Readers.” In Burton Visotzky, Reading the Book: Making the Bible a Timeless Text. Pp. 21-56
8. Gwynn Kessler
Selected Texts
9. Nina Caputo
Miriam Bodian, "Men of the Nation: The Shaping of Converso Identity in Early Modern Europe" in Past and Present n. 143 (1994): 4-76;
10. Nina Caputo
Benedict Spinoza, Theologio-Political Treatise, Preface through Chapter II,
ttp://www.yesselman.com/ttpelws1.htm#PREFACE
11. Eric Kligerman
Moses and Monotheism
12. Eric Kligerman
Moses and Monotheism
13. Michal Ben-Horin
Secularization and the Jewish Imagination of the State: Herzl’s Altneuland
14. Michal Ben-Horin
Texts
15. Simon Rabinovitch
Jews in Russian Culture
16. Simon Rabinovitch
Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Five
17. Yiddish, David Biale, “Jewry Between Two Worlds: East European Jewish Culture from the Partitions of Poland until the Holocaust.” In David Biale, ed. The Culture of the Jews, pp799-860
18. Yiddish, Abraham Cahan, The Rise of David Levinsky.
19. Nora Alter
Hannah Arendt, The Jew as Pariah: Jewish Identity and Politics in the Modern Age.
Theodore Adorno, "What Does Coming to Terms With the Past Mean?" In Hartman (ed.), Bitburg in Moral and Political Perspective (Bloomington, Plymbridge, 1986)
20. Nora Alter
Screening: Yesterday Girl (Anita G)
21. Galili Shachar
Franz Kafka, 25.6. 1914 Diaries
22. Galili Shachar
Franz Kafka, “Before the Law, “ “Old Manuscript” “Metamorphosis” In Franz Kafka, The Complete Stories
23. Race Mitch Hart
Mitch Hart, "Racial Science, Social Science, and the Politics of Jewish Assimilation," Isis: Journal of the History of Science Society, vol. 90, no. 2, June 1999
Eric Goldstein, The Price of Whiteness. Introduction and Chapter Four.
24. Race Mitch Hart
Selected texts
25. Us and Them in Popular Culture
Jack Kugelmass, “First as Farce, Then as Tragedy: The Unlamented Demise of Bridget Loves Bernie.” In Jack Kugelmass, ed. Key Texts in American Jewish Culture. Rutgers University Press, 2003. Pp. 147-160.
Donald Weber, “The Limits of Empathy: Hollywood’s Imaging of Jews Circa 1947” In Jack Kugelmass, ed. Key Texts in American Jewish Culture. Rutgers University Press, 2003. Pp.91-104.
26. Us and Them in Popular Culture
Screening: A Gentleman’s Agreement
27. Humor
Selected texts
28. Humor
Screening: Broadway Danny Rose
29. Summary

Jewish Identity in Literature

Course Description:

The challenges posed by modernity are expressed most acutely in the literary interplay of cultural and ethnic identities; in the 19th and 20th centuries in particular writers used Jewish characters to describe, define and confuse national, political, and cultural identities. This class explores Jewish identities through modern fiction, poetry, autobiography and memoir. Our texts provide a range of judgments on Jewish assimilation; the class will examine the political, social, cultural, and even physical assessments of Jews and Jewishness within the changing contexts of nationalism and ideology. We will also explore the expressions and conflicts inherent in the construction and destruction of Jewish identities by looking at some major themes of modernity: political freedom, religious toleration, social integration, self-determination, and assimilation. In order to see the range of choices engendered by modern politics and various forms of pluralism promised by secular society, this class will read works from European, South American, North American, and Israeli authors. No prior work in Judaism is required.

Required Course books:

Silvio Arieti, The Parnas (Paul Dry Books)
Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union: A Novel (HarperCollins)
George Eliot, Daniel Deronda (Penguin)
Solomon Maimon, An Autobiography (University of Illinois Press)
Bernard Malamud, The Fixer (Farrar Straus and Giroux)
Daniel Mendelsohn, The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million (Harper Perennial)
Moacyr Scliar, The Centaur in the Garden (University of Wisconsin Press)
Other course readings will be available on the e-Learning Website.

Strongly suggested:

William Strunk and E.B. White, The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition
Patricia O’Connor, Woe is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English
(Riverhead)

Weekly readings and discussions:

** indicates the reading is available at e-Learning
1. Introduction
2. Lessing, “The Jews” (1749)**
3. Maimon, An Autobiography (1792-1793), pp. 1-53
4. Maimon, An Autobiography, pp. 59-93; 187-220
5. Heine, “Princess Sabbath” (ca 1850)** and “Song of Songs” (ca 1850)**
6. Aguilar, “Song of the Spanish Jews, During Their ‘Golden Age’”
(1843)**, “A Vision of Jerusalem” (1844)**, “The Address To The Ocean”
(1847)**, “The Hebrew’s Appeal” (1844)**, “Dialogue Stanzas” (1845)**,
“The Wanderers” (1845)** and selections from “Sabbath Thoughts”
(1840s/1853)**
7. Eliot, Daniel Deronda, Book I
Afternoon lecture (not required)
8. Ruth Behar (Univ. of Michigan), "Searching for Jewish Cuba: Perils and Pleasures of Diasporic Ethnography.” Tuesday, January 29th, 4:00pm in the 2nd floor atrium of Ustler Hall.
9. Eliot, Daniel Deronda, Book II
10. Eliot, Daniel Deronda, Books III & IV
11. Eliot, Daniel Deronda, Book V
Special Project Proposal Due
Evening lecture (not required)
12. Naomi Seidman (Berkeley), "Faithful Renderings: Jewish-Christian
Difference & the Politics of Translation,"
13. Eliot, Daniel Deronda, Book VI
14. Eliot, Daniel Deronda, Book VII
15. SPECIAL CLASS (required), Time TBA
Eliot, Daniel Deronda, Book VIII
16. Malamud, The Fixer, pp. 1-69
Evening lecture (not required)
17. Jonathan Schorsch, "Esperanza Rodriguez: A Mulata from 17th-Century Mexico City," Wednesday, February 20th, 7:30 at Hillel.
18. Malamud, The Fixer, pp. 70-227
19. Malamud, The Fixer, pp. 229-335
20. Hazaz, “The Sermon” (1942)**
Roth, “The Conversion of the Jews” (1959)**
FIRST PAPER DUE
21. Arieti, The Parnas, pp. 3-66
22. Arieti, The Parnas, pp. 67-143
Evening lecture (not required):
23. Jonathan Judaken (University of Memphis), "Theorizing Anti-Semitism," time & location TBA.
25. Scliar, The Centaur in the Garden, pp. 1-98
26. Scliar, The Centaur in the Garden, pp. 99-216
27. Newman, “A Letter to Harvey Milk” (1986)**
28. Castel-Bloom, “A Thousand Shekels a Story” (1993)** and “The Woman Whose Hand Got Stuck in the Mailbox” (1994)**
Englander, “Wig” (1999)**, “The Gilgul of Park Avenue” (1999)**, “Reb Kringle” (1999)**
Keret, “Shoes” (2001)**, “Plague of the Firstborn” (2001)** and “For Only 9.99 (Inc. Tax and Postage” (2004)**
29. Mendelsohn, The Lost, pp. 3-74
30. Mendelsohn, The Lost, pp. 80-152
SECOND PAPER DUE
31. Mendelsohn, The Lost, pp.155-267
32. Mendelsohn, The Lost, pp.270-503 (or as far as you can get….)
Evening lecture (not required)
33. Ilana Pardes (Hebrew University), " The Song of Songs as Cultural Text."
A reading from The Song of Songs and a consideration of its circulation in Israeli culture. Thursday, April 10th, 2008. Time and location TBA.
34. Chabon, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union
35. Chabon, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union
36. Chabon, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union
SPECIAL PROJECTS DUE

History of the Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe

Course Objectives:

This course is a comprehensive survey of the history of the Jewish communities of Russia and Eastern Europe from the middle of the eighteenth century until today. Economic, societal, religious, cultural and political developments contributing to the course of Jewish history in Eastern Europe will all be examined in detail. The course focuses on the modern period, but begins by explaining how Jews initially came to settle in Eastern Europe and the reasons for their demographic expansion. After describing some characteristics of Jewish life in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the course covers the partitions of Poland and the absorption of the majority of European Jewry into the tsarist empire. Much of the course focuses on the nineteenth century, and in particular, the effects of urbanization, modernization, and government policies on Jewish life in Eastern Europe. The course moves on to discuss the rise of Jewish politics, the emergence of Jewish nationalism, and the impact of World War I and the Russian Revolution on East European and Russian Jewry. The topic of the Holocaust is discussed in the context of its impact on Jewish life in independent Poland and the Baltic states. The course concludes with an overview of Jewish life in the Soviet Union, postcommunist Russia, and Eastern Europe. In exploring the evolution of the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe, it is hoped that students will learn the historical context crucial to a proper understanding of the Jewish experience in the modern era.

Texts:

Available for purchase at Goerings Book Store (1717 NW 1st Ave.):
Lucy Dawidowicz ed., The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe (Syracuse, 1996).
Gershon Hundert, Jews in Poland-Lithuania in the Eighteenth Century: A Genealogy of Modernity (Berkeley, 2004).
John Doyle Klier, Russia Gathers Her Jews: The Origins of the “Jewish Question” in Russia, 1772-1825 (Dekalb, 1986).
Zvi Gitelman, Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present (Bloomington, 2001).
Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Five. Michael Katz trans. (Ithaca, 2005).
Jan Gross, Neighbors (Princeton, 2000).
All additional readings are on webct and library reserve and are indicated in the syllabus by *.

Course Schedule and Assignments:

Double-classes (Tuesdays) are marked D.
Section I – Jewish Life in Poland-Lithuania
1.Introduction to the Course
How the Jews got where and why: a brief history of Jewish migration
2. A brief history of Poland-Lithuania
3. Jewish society in pre-partition Poland
4. Jewish religious life in Poland-Lithuania in the 18th century
5. Royal towns and noble towns
Readings:
Hundert, Jews in Poland-Lithuania in the Eighteenth Century, chapters 1-5, and 10.
Moshe Rosman, “A Minority Views the Majority: Jewish Attitudes towards the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Interaction with the Poles,” in From Shtetl to Socialism, Antony Polonsky ed. (London, 1993), 39-49.*
Section II – Religion and Modernity
6. Religious life: the origins of Hasidism
7.Religious life: Hasidim and Mitnagdim
8. Modernization and East-European Jewry
9. The Haskalah and the problems of emancipation, acculturation, and assimilation
Readings:
Hundert, Jews in Poland-Lithuania in the Eighteenth Century, chapters 6-9.
Shmuel Ettinger, “The Struggle for Emancipation in Western and Central Europe,” and “The Struggle for Emancipation in Eastern Europe,” in A History of the Jewish People, H. H. Ben-Sasson ed. (Cambridge, MA, 1997), 800-824.*
Dawidowicz, 5-89 (introduction), plus selections to be assigned in class.
Section III – Jewish Communities in the Nineteenth Century
10. Seminar in research methodology
11. The Jewish communities in the Kingdom of Poland (the Congress Kingdom)
12. The Jewish communities in the Pale of Settlement
13. The Jewish communities in Prussian Poland
14. The Jewish communities in Galicia
15.Government attempts to transform the Jews and Jewish responses
Readings:
Klier, Russia Gathers Her Jews.
Israel Bartal and Antony Polonsky, “Introduction: The Jews of Galicia under the Habsburgs,” in Polin vol.12, 3-24.*
Theodore Weeks, From Assimilation to Antisemitism: The “Jewish Question” in Poland, 1850-1914 (Dekalb, 2006), 33-70.*
Selected readings from Dawidowicz TBA in class.
Section IV – Into the Fin-de-Siècle
16. The Jews in Galicia, Prussian Poland, and the Kingdom of Poland 1869-1914
17. Anti-Jewish violence in the tsarist empire, 1881-1914
18. The rise of the new Jewish politics
19 Emigration and the New Jewish Centers: The United States
20. Emigration and the New Jewish Centers: Palestine
Readings:
Gitelman, Century of Ambivalence, chapter 1.
David Fishman, “The Bund and Modern Yiddish Culture,” in The Emergence of Modern Jewish Politics: Bundism and Zionism in Eastern Europe, Zvi Gitelman ed. (Pittsburgh, 2003), 107-119.*
Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Five.
Selected readings from Dawidowicz TBA in class.
Section V – Challenges of the 20th Century
21. Film: The Dybbuk
22. The emergence of modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature
23. The Jews on the eastern front in World War I
24. The Russian Revolution and Civil War
25. The Jews in Poland, the Baltic States, and the Soviet Union in the interwar period
Readings:
Selections from, S. Ansky, The Enemy at his Pleasure: A Journey Through the Jewish Pale of Settlement During World War I. Joachim Neugroschel trans. (New York, 2002).*
Gitelman, Century of Ambivalence, chapters 2-3.
Selected readings from Dawidowicz TBA in class.
Section VI – Destruction and Rebuilding
26. East European Jewry on the eve of World War II (will include short films made in Cracow, Lvov, Bialystok, Vilna and Warsaw in 1939)
27. The Holocaust
28. Post-war Jewish life behind the Iron Curtain and since the fall of Communism
29. Summing up
Readings:
Gitelman. Century of Ambivalence, chapters 4-9.
Gross, Neighbors.
Ezra Mendelsohn, “Interwar Poland: Good for the Jews or bad for the Jews?” in The Jews in Poland Abramsky, Jachimczyk and Polonsky eds. (Oxford, 1986), 130-139.*
Selected readings from Dawidowicz TBA in class.
40. Final Examination 5:30-7:30 PM

Motherhood in Modern Hebrew Fiction

Texts:

An anthology of Hebrew short stories translated into English (available at Orange & Blue, 309 NW 13th St.)

Castel-Blum, Orly. Dolly City. Trans. Dalya Bilu. Loki Books, London, 1997.
Kimhi, Alona, Weeping Susannah. The Harvill Press, London, 1999.
Oz, Amos. My Michael. Trans. Nichlas de Lange. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1972.
Appelfeld, Aharon. For Every Sin.
Golan, Avirama. The Raven.
Mothering – Ideology, Experinece and Agency, ed. Glenn, Chang and Forcey. Routledge, New York, 1994.

Course Rationale:

The course examines the different representations of motherhood in Hebrew literature throughout the twentieth century. The selected short stories and novels compare the situation of mothers in traditional, religious Jewish society to their situation in a modern, secular culture. Along with depicting the changing image of motherhood throughout the twentieth century, the course will discuss the differences between male descriptions of motherhood and female descriptions (cl. Helene Cixous’ emphasis on female style, suitable for the unique female experience). A new generation of women writers, over the past two decades, has added several dimensions to the way mothers had been depicted in Hebrew prose. With the typical shift of point of view from a childnarrator to a mother-narrator, the concept of the mother as a nurturing, self-sacrificing, almost selfless creature, who lives to serve her children, has almost disappeared. Instead, motherhood is described as a conflict-ridden situation.

Weekly Syllabus:

Week Topic for discussion and Reading Material
1 An introduction. Discussing Evelyn Nakano Gleen’s “Social Constructions of Mothering: A Thematic Overview” (in: Mothering – Ideology, Experience and Agency, ed. Glenn, Chang and Forcey).
Reading Dvora Baron’s story “Shifra,” and Savion Liebrecht’s “A Room on the Roof.”
2 Continuing the introduction. Reading Baron’s “Sister,” and Agnon’ “The Kerchief.”
Secondary sources: Patricia Hill Collins: “Shifting the Center: Race, Class, and Feminist Theorizing About Motherhood” (in Mothering). Tamar El-Or, “Paradoxes and Social Boundaries: Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Women and their World.” (in the anthology).
3 The “New Jew” and the new kibbutz’ family. Moshe Shamir and Balaban.
Watching the movie Atalia.
Secondary sources: Sylvie Fofiel-Bijaoui, “From Revolution to Motherhood:
The Case of Women in the Kibbutz, 1910-1948.” (in the anthology); Deborah
Bernstein, “ Human Being or Housewife” (in the anthology).
4-5 The neglecting mother: Amos Oz’s “The Hill of Evil Counsel” and Aharon Appelfeld’s For Every Sin.
6 Oz’s My Michael.
7 Yehoshua Kenaz’s “Musical Moment.”
8. Avirama Golan’s The Raven.
Secondary sources: Adrienne Rich’s Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (selected chapters).
9 Reading Hannah Bat-Shahar’s “Among the Geranium Pots,” Savion Liebrecht’s “Apples from the Desert,” Kahana-Carmon’s Bridal Veil,”
And discussing Simone De Beauvoir and Marianne Hirsch’s theories about mother-daughter relationships.
10 Savion Liebrecht’s “A Married Women,” and “What Am I Speaking, Chinese?’ She Said to him.” Mother/daughter.
11. David Grossman’s The Book of Intimate Grammar (selected chapters).
12. Orly Castel-Blum’s Dolly City, Gafi Amir’s “By the Time you are Twenty one.”
13-14 Alona Kimhi’s Weeping Susannah.

Selected Secondary sources related to motherhood:

Arnup, A. Levesque, A. and Pierson, R. R. eds. Delivering Motherhood: Maternal Ideology and Practices in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Routledge, New York, 1990.
DiQuinzio, P. The Impossibility of Motherhood: Feminism, Individualism, and the Problem of Mothering. Routledge, New York, 1999.
Ginsburg, Ruth. “The Jewish Mother Turned Monster: Representations of Motherhood by Hebrew Women Novelists 1881-1993.” In Women’s Studies International Forum, vol 20, 5-6, pp. 631-638.
Glenn, E. N. Chang, G. and Forcey, L. R. eds. Mothering: Ideology, Experience and Agency. Routledge, New York, 1994.
Hirsch, Marianne. The Mother/Daughter Plot: Narrative, Psychoanalysis, Feminism. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1989.
Rich, Adrienne. Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. Norton, New York, 1976.
Shiffman, Smadar. “Motherhood Under Zionism.” In Hebrew Studies, vol. XLIV, 2003, pp. 139-156.

War in Israeli Film and Culture

Description:

War is an extreme case of collective violence and aggression. What happens to this violence when it is represented, documented or performed within an aesthetic medium and the cinematic medium in particular? How a film that incorporates images of war can offer us means of cultural criticism? Does it address ethical questions, how, and to what effect? This course deals with representations of violence in Israeli film and culture. A selection of films, such as Wooden Gun (1979), One of Us (1989), Kippur (2000), Yossi & Jagger (2002), Atash (2005), prose and poetry demonstrate different approaches regarding the conflict in the Middle East, which also resonate with the changing tendencies in Israel's public sphere. We will explore the reconstruction and deconstruction of heroic myths, and examine how militarist discourses shape also contradictory identities and reveal the tensions between the private and the public.

Readings:

Furman, Mirta. "Army and War: Collective Narratives of Early Childhood in Contemporary Israel”, in: The Military and Militarism in Israeli Society, Edna Lomsky-Feder, Eyal Ben-Ari eds. (State University of New York Press, 1999), pp. 141-168.
Hendel, Yehudit. “Apples in Honey”, in: Ribcage: Israeli Women Fiction, Carol Diament, Lily Rattok eds. (Hadassah, 1994), pp. 263-274.
Hever, Hannan. “Gender, Body, and the National Subject: Israeli Women’s Poetry in the War of Independence”, in: The Military and Militarism in Israeli Society, Edna Lomsky-Feder, Eyal Ben-Ari eds. (State University of New York Press, 1999), pp. 225-260
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