In Spring 2011 Hunter College is offering the following courses: Russian and Soviet Jewish History and American Jewish History. Previously offered courses include Topics in History: Secular Judaism, a core course, and a peripheral course, Crises and Responses in Modern Jewish History.
Russian and Soviet Jewish History
Professor Robert M. Seltzer, Dr. Edith Rogovin Frankel, Leonard Petlakh
Goals:
1.
The aim of the course is to familiarize the students with the intense,
complex, and turbulent history of the Jews in Russia and the USSR, with
special emphasis on the twentieth century.
2. The story of
the Russian Jewry has decisively shaped the history of Jews in modern
times in many ways. Russian Jewry was one of most important branches of
the Jewish people in the late tsarist and Soviet periods, but also
indirectly in the history of the Jews of the United States, the State of
Israel, and other lands.
3. Russian Jewry is a continuation
of the long history of Jewish life in Poland and Lithuania, where there
were centuries of richly creative Jewish cultural life and where Jews
played a vital role in economy. By the beginning of the 19th century, a
large part (not all) Polish-Lithuanian Jews suddenly found themselves
living under Russian rule. Even then Eastern Europe Jewry constituted
about half of the Jews of the world and was growing in numbers at the
most rapid rate of any sector of the Jewish people.
4. By
the turn of the 20th century Russian Jewry was the genesis of important
Jewish secular and cultural movements. Then it was faced with Soviet
dictatorship, the Nazi onslaught, and the Cold War era. Its travails
coping with totalitarianism during these 7 decades is a quiet epic in
itself.
5. The course will conclude with the story of the
exodus of more than a million FSU (Former Soviet Union) Jews in the two
decades of the 20th century and the current situation of Jews in Russia
and efforts to rebuild the Jewish communal institutions there.
6.
The course will be of interest to students of Jewish history but also
those who are studying history from a comparative perspective. Although
unique, Russian Jewish culture and politics is a paradigm of the impact
of modernization on ethnic and religious groups not only in Eastern
Europe but in many other areas of the world.
7. This
experimental course is made possible by a special donation to encourage
the study of the subject at Hunter. It brings together three teachers,
each with his or her expertise and perspectives. We will also have
guest speakers who have special knowledge of some aspect of the subjects
covered.
Requirements:
1. A midterm exam and a final exam.
2.
An essay of about 4-6 pages on a book exploring some aspect of the
Russian Jewish past. A list of possible topics and a selected
bibliography will be provided.
3. Regular attendance and participation.
Texts:
Israel Bartal, The Jews of Eastern Europe, 1772-1881. University of Pennsylvania paperback, 2005. ISBN 13: 978-0-8122-1907-4.
Zvi Gitelman. A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the present. Second, expanded (paperback) edition. ISBN 978-0-253-21418-8.
Gail Beckerman. When They Come for Us We’ll be Gone: the Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010. ISBN 978-0-618-57309-7.
Additional required and recommended readings will be provided via Blackboard.
Course outline:
Part 1: East European Jewry to 1772.
1. Introduction to the course and the teachers.
1. Jews in Eastern Europe in ancient and medieval times. RMS.
2. The Jewish community in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. RMS.
1. Its Ashkenazic institutions and culture (the kahal, talmudic learning, piety (hasidut).
2. Jewish economic roles in Poland-Lithuania (arendars, the shtetl, traders) .
3. The Chmielnicki massacres of 1648-49 and their aftermath. RMS.
1.
(Note: the Deluge period in Polish history applies to the two decades
from the Chmielnicki uprising of 1648 to the Truce of Andrusovo in
1667.)
2. The rise of the new Hasidism attributed to Israel ben
Eliezar, the Baal Shem Tov (the BeSHT) and his followers; the opponents
of Hasidism (the mitnaggedim) and their hero, the Vilna Gaon.
Part 2: From the Partitions of Poland to the Pogroms of 1881-1882.
4. How (most) Polish-Lithuanian Jews become Russian subjects. ERF.
1. Russia acquires its Jews; the Napoleonic interlude; the situation after the Congress of Vienna (1815).
2. The formalization of the Pale of Settlement.
5. The reign of Nicholas I. ERF.
1. The conscription system and cantonist battalions.
2. Other ukazes affecting the Jews.
6. Jewish culture in Russia in the early and mid 19th century. RMS.
1. The rise of the Haskalah (the Jewish Enlightenment) in Eastern Europe.
2. The Lithuanian yeshivot (rabbinic academies); the Musar (ethics) movement.
7. The Effects of the Crimean War and the era of Alexander II's reforms. RMS.
1. The radicalization of the Haskalah in the 70s.
2. The new Jewish press.
3. Russian Jews who settled outside the Pale and entered the universities and professions.
Part 3: From the Pogroms of 1881-1882 to the Russian Revolution.
8. The pogroms in relation to the new anti-Semitism. ERF.
1. The impact of the pogroms on the Jewish intelligentsia.
2. The May Laws and other restrictions imposed by Alexander III and Pobedonostev.
3. Mass emigration and where the Jewish immigrants settled.
9. Secularizing and artistic tendencies at the turn of the century. RMS.
1. A Jewish literary renaissance in Hebrew, Yiddish and Russian.
2. The new secular Jewish intellectual and ideologist: the case history of Simon Dubnow.
3. Jewish artists (Levitan, Antokolsky, and others).
10. Sociological profile at the turn of the century. ERF.
1. Russian Jewish demography according to the census of 1897.
2. Jewish girls and women in the Russian empire; their education and place in society.
11. Political and social upheaval in Russia, 1900-1907. ERF.
1. From Hibbat Zion
(the Love of Zion movement) to Zionism; the impact of socialist ideas
and the creation of the Jewish Workers Bund of Russia, Poland, and
Lithuania.
2. The Kishinev pogrom and reactions to it. The question of Jewish self-defense.
3. The Revolution of 1905; the Jewish movements and Russian political parties.
12. Political complications, continued: 1907-1914. ERF.
1. A new wave of pogroms.
2. The Beilis Case.
3. The Second Aliyah.
13. The February and October revolutions of 1917. ERF.
1. The war years.
2. The surge of Jewish activism until the Bolshevik repressions.
14. Midterm exam.
Part 4: From the Communist Takeover to the 1939.
15. The Civil War years. LP
1. Massacres of Jews.
2. Treatment of Jews by rivals in the Civil War.
3. Jewish response to the new ideologies.
4. Rescue efforts of the Joint Distribution Committee.
16. Communist policies affecting the Jews under Lenin and after his death. ERF.
1. The anti-religious campaign.
2. The Evsekstiia (Jewish Sections of the Communist Party).
17. Stalin's takeover and the Five-Year Plans. ERF.
1. The struggle with Trotsky.
2. Jews in the Communist hierarchy.
3. How Communist policies affected the Jews: destruction of Jewish institutions; Jewish social mobility.
4. The Birobidjan project for a Jewish homeland in eastern Siberia.
18. How Jewish artists and intellectuals tried to cope the with regime. LP.
1. The Moscow Yiddish theater and other Jewish artistic ventures.
2. The case histories of Babel, Marshak, Mandelstamm, Ehrenberg, Grossman, early Pasternak, and others.
Part 5. World War II and the Holocaust.
19. Toward World War II. LP.
1. The Stalin-Hitler pact.
2. Soviet takeover of eastern Poland, the Baltic states, Bessarabia.
3. The German invasion and the attempted evacuation eastward.
20. The Holocaust in the USSR, continued. LP.
1. The Einsatzgruppen (special action squads in charge of mass killings of Jews), labor camps.
2. The behavior of the local populations
21. The Holocaust in the USSR. LP.
1. Jews fighting Nazism in the Soviet army and in partisan units.
2. Jewish prisoners of war.
3. The last phase of the war and the survivors.
Part 6: From the End of World War II to the Dissolution of the USSR.
22. The post-war Stalin regime. ERF.
1. The murder of Mikhoels and other Jewish figures involved in the Jewish anti-Fascist Committee.
2. The "Black Years."
3. The "Doctors Plot."
23. The other Jewish communities of the USSR. LP.
1. Mountain Jews of the Caucasus.
2. Georgian Jews.
3. Central Asia: Bukharan Jews.
4. Krymchak Jews.
5. The Subbotniks.
24. The Khruschev era. ERF.
1. Soviet policy toward Israel and the Middle East.
2. Anti-Semitism continued.
Part 7: Recent Decades.
25. From Brezhnev to Gorbachov. ERF.
1. The impact of the Six Day War of 1967.
2. The role of Jews in Soviet arts, literature, and science.
3. The Jackson-Vanik Amendment and the emigration movement to Israel, North America, and Europe.
26. The emigration movement continued. LP.
1. American Jewish activism in behalf of Russian Jews.
27. Prospects for the Jews in contemporary Russia. LP.
1. Guest speakers.
28. Concluding class.
1. Guest speakers.
2. Summary remarks by ERF, LP, RMS.
*** Final exam, 9-11 AM.
Assigned readings, partial list:
Part 1. East European Jewry to 1772.
Readings:
Seltzer, Jewish People, Jewish Thought, “The Jews of Poland and Lithuania,” pp. 474-496 (to be made available via Blackboard).
Part 2. 1772 to 1881, from the Partitions of Poland to the Pogroms of 1881-82.
Readings:
Israel Bartal, The Jews of Eastern Europe, 1772-1881.
Chapter 1: “The Jews of the Kingdom.”
Chapter 3: “Towns and Cities: Society and Economic, 1795-1863.”
Chapter 4: “Hasidim, Mitnagdim, and Maskilim.”
Chapter 5: “Russia and the Jews.”
Chapter 9: “The Days of Springtime: Czar Alexander II and the Era of Reform.”
Chapter 10: “Between Two Extremes: Radicalism and Orthodoxy.”
Chapter 13: “Storms in the South, 1881-1882.”
Conclusion: “Jews as an Ethnic Minority in Eastern Europe.”
Part 3. From the Pogroms and May Laws to the Revolutions of 1917.
Readings:
Gitelman, chapter 1.
Jonathan Frankel, Crisis, Revolution, and Russian Jews.
Chapter 1: “Crisis as a Factor in Modern Jewish Politics, 1840 and 1881-1882.”
Chapter 3: “Jewish Politics and the Russian Revolution of 1905.”
Chapter 6: “The Paradoxical Politics of Marginality: Thoughts on the Jewish Situation during the Years 1914-1921.”
Part 4. From the Communist Takeover to 1939.
Readings:
Gitelman, chapters 2 and 3.
Part 5. World War II and the Holocaust .
Reading:
Gitelman, chapter 4.
Part 6. 1945 to 1991, from the End of World War II to the Dissolution of the USSR in 1991.
Reading:
Gitelman, chapters 5 & 6.
Gal Beckerman, When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry.
Part 7. Recent Decades.
Readings:
Gitelman, chapters 8 and 9.
Gal Beckerman, When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone: “Afterward.”
American Jewish History
Professor Eli Faber
Goals:
This
course, first, surveys the course of American Jewish history over the
duration of its 350 years (1654-present), though we will not limit
ourselves to surveying its basic facts and figures. For second, it
includes sustained consideration of the overarching themes that run
through it, such as relations with the non-Jewish majority, relations
among various factions within the Jewish population, the establishment
of economic niches, and contributions to the nation’s cultural life. Of
the overarching themes, perhaps the most important, and surely the most
recurrent, is that of simultaneously living in and contending with two
different cultures, one often in conflict with the other. This may be
summarized variously as Old-World backgrounds versus New-World
realities; as tradition versus modernity; as faith versus rationalism;
and as a struggle to maintain distinctiveness versus assimilation, the
latter duality being the reason that maintaining “Jewish identity” in
America has always been at issue. However summarized, our purpose is to
examine the accommodations and adjustments, the conflicts and tensions,
that arose in consequence.
The third goal is for the student to
discover much of that history by himself or herself: in essence, to be
the historian. To that end, no assignments in secondary sources are
made, save for a single survey history which, in the usual way of
textbooks, will provide background, general knowledge, and structure.
Rather than reading a body of secondary studies by historians, you, the
student, will be the historian by using original sources and writing
about them on a weekly basis.
For the survey history, all should obtain a copy of Hasia R. Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000 (2004).
Some
of the primary sources that we will use will be distributed in class,
and are identified as such in the syllabus. Others are much too long
for that; students must obtain them on their own. They are readily
available in CUNY’s various libraries, in local libraries, in the Jewish
Division of the New York Public Library, in the library of the Center
for Jewish History, in bookstores, and online at Amazon.com, where they
can be purchased in used form, thereby keeping costs down considerably.
Course Outline:
1. Introductions
2. The Eighteenth-Century Jewish Community
Diner, Jews of the United States, 13-40
Selections from the Records of Congregation Shearith Israel, New York; distributed in class
Question: How can we comprehend what comprised “the Jewish community” in America during the eighteenth century?
3. Jewish Identity in the New World
Diner, 13-40 (as above)
Selections from the letters of the Franks family of New York,
portraits of early American Jews, and images of early American
synagogues; distributed in class
Question: How did early-American Jews approach their own culture and, at the same time, that of the host society?
4. The Era of the American Revolution
Diner, 41-67
Public statements, petitions, and letters by Jews between 1775 and 1820; selections distributed in class
Question: Can the American Revolution be seen as a revolution, too, in American Jewish life?
5. Creating a New Judaism
Diner, 41-88, 112-134
Selections from Isaac Mayer Wise’s Reminiscences (1901), from his publication, The Israelite (1856-1864), and an image of the Plum Street Synagogue; distributed in class
Question: Did Isaac Mayer Wise propose that the Jews of
America preserve their distinctiveness, or did he instead counsel
cultural assimilation?
6. Immigrating from Eastern Europe, I
Diner, 88-111, 135-154
Stella Suberman, The Jew Store (2001) – entire
Question: How was the East European Jewish family affected by
immigration and by residence in the small town depicted in the memoir?
7. Immigrating from Eastern Europe, II
Diner, 88-111, 135-154 (as above)
Hutchins Hapgood, The Spirit of the Ghetto (1902); selections distributed in class
Question: How was the East European Jewish family affected by immigration and by residence in the metropolis?
8. Accommodating to Life in America, I
Mordecai M. Kaplan, Judaism as a Civilization: Toward a Reconstruction of American-Jewish Life (1935); selections distributed in class
Question: Despite the fact that Kaplan believed that
Conservatism and Neo-Orthodoxy were wanting, how might the two movements
have served to mitigate “the present crisis in Judaism” that he
identified?
9. Accommodating to Life in America, II
Michael Gold, Jews Without Money – entire
Question: What alternatives were there for the preservation of
a Jewish identity outside religion for immigrants from Eastern Europe?
10. Twentieth-Century Antisemitism
Diner, 205-215
Selections from Madison Grant, The Passing of the Great Race (1916); and from Historical Research Department of the Nation of Islam, The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews Vol. I (1991); distributed in class
Question: What can account for these antisemitic formulations
in twentieth-century America, original as they were in the long history
of antisemitism?
11. American Jewry and the Holocaust
Diner, 215-222
Stephen S. Wise, Challenging Years (1949); selections distributed in class
Question: How did the author account for American Jews’
response to news of the destruction of European Jewry during the war?
12. Jews in Suburbia
Diner, 259-304
Portfolio of mid-twentieth-century synagogues and community centers; distributed in class;
and Philip Roth, “Eli the Fanatic” – on library reserve
Question: Inasmuch as architecture can be said to mirror
social values, what values are revealed by the structures in the
portfolio? To what extent do those values coincide with those of the
people depicted in Roth’s story?
13. “Jewish Identity” in the Late Twentieth Century
Lee F. Gruzen, Raising Your Jewish Christian Child: Wise Choices for Interfaith Parents and Lydia Kukoff, Choosing Judaism (1981); selections distributed in class
Question: Were these approaches conducive to maintaining a
distinctive Jewish identity, or were they more likely to lead to
assimilation?
14. Writing the History of Late Twentieth Century American Jewry
Diner, 305-358
Yossi Klein Halevi, Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist: An American Story (1995) -- entire
Question: Although American Jewish life in the late-twentieth
century was characterized by a wide panoply of experiences, what major
themes and issues in modern American Jewish history emerge in Klein
Halevi’s autobiography, even though its author was representative of
only one small group within the American Jewish community?
15. Final Examination
The U.S. presidents’ commemorative speeches on the occasions of
the 250th , 300th, and 350th anniversaries of the Jewish people in
America; distributed in class
Question: Will be announced when the texts are distributed
Topics in History: Secular Judaism
Professor Robert M. Seltzer
Course description:
1. The modern world has brought forth a proliferation of Jewish
identities, including many that are primarily secular. These are
conceptions of Judaism, Jewishness, and Jewish collective and personal
identity that are not primarily religious or that are not religious at
all. They do not advocate faith in God, in Torah as a divine revelation
in any sense, or in the communal authority of the rabbi. Instead, they
place at the center peoplehood, social justice, and personal rootedness
in the Jewish heritage. This course will describe these ideologies and
their main proponents and analyze their relation to modern science,
historical scholarship, and the changed status of the Jews in society.
It will also consider secularized versions of Judaism, such as those of
Marx and Freud, which offer explanations for the persistence of
Judaism, if not its future survival.
2. This is an experimental course in modern Jewish history. The aim
is to introduce the students to some of the main issues, personalities,
and movements connected with secular approaches to Jewish identity in
the modern world.
3. We will explore how a non-theological cultural approach to
Jewish identity emerged in relation to the history of the Jews in
modern times, especially since the later 19th century.
4. We will focus on a selected number of writer, thinkers, and
activists who have defined their Jewishness in ethnic and cultural
terms.
5. We will try to bring the course up to recent times.
6. This course, as well as several other new courses and a lecture
series on related topics, was made possible by a grant from the Felix
Posen Foundation and the Center for Cultural Judaism. We are very
grateful to Felix Posen and for the advice of Myrna Baron. This grant
makes it possible for us to have guest speakers address the class from
time to time.
Texts:
Renee Kogel and Zev Katz, editors. Judaism in a Secular Age: An Anthology of Humanistic Jewish Thought.
Ktav, 1995. Reprinted by the International Institute for Secular
Humanistic Judaism, Farmington Hils, MI. This anthology will be
available for purchase at Shakespeare and Company on the eastside of
Lexington Ave. between 68th and 69th Streets.
Selections from Robert M. Seltzer, Jewish People Jewish Thought. Professor Seltzer will be posting on Blackboard the relevant chapters of this book.
Schedule of class meetings:
1. Introduction to the course.
2. Judaism as peoplehood and tradition.
3. The medieval marriage of science and religion and its divorce in early modern science.
4. Baruch Spinoza. Guest speaker: Dr. Allan Lazaroff.
5. The pre-modern semi-autonomous status of the Jewish people and
the challenge of secular emancipation. The case of Moses Mendelssohn.
6. Secularity and its relation to Judaism. Guest speaker: Jack Bemporad.
7. Backlash against emancipation: anti-Semitism as the secularization of Jew-hatred.
8. The secularization of Jewish memory: the new Jewish historical consciousness through Wissenschaft des Judentums. The cases of Heinrich Heine and Moses Hess.
9. The later Haskalah and Hibbat Zion: Ahad Ha-Am.
10. Simon Dubnow on "Old and New Judaism."
11. Theodor Herzl and the creation of the Zionist movement.
12. Special lecture on Aaron Megged and Yiddish culture by Professor Stanley Nash at 12 noon (in place of our class).
13. The Jewish attraction to socialism: Aaron David Gordon.
14. Jewish Marxism of Ber Borochov. Guest speaker: Dr. Sanford Ragins.
15. Martin Buber and Gershom Scholem.
16. Hans Kohn and the Prague Circle. Guest speaker: Brian Smollett.
17. Sigmund Freud's Jewishness.
18. American exponents of secular Jewishness: Horace Kallen. Secular elements in Mordecai Kaplan’s Reconstructionism.
19. Irving Howe. Guest speaker: Kenneth Libo.
20. David Ben Gurion and Vladimir Jabotinsky.
21. Marie Syrkin. Guest speaker: Carole Kessner.
22. Hayim Greenberg.
23. Lithuanian Jewish intellectuals in post World War II Paris. Guest speaker: Judith Friedlander.
24.The Humanistic Judaism movement in America. Guest speaker: Rabbi Peter Schweitzer.
25. Jewishness in American Jewish literature.
26. Secular Judaism and the current state of American Jewish religiosity.
27. The future of secular Judaism.
28. Final exam
Crises and Responses in Modern Jewish History
Professor Laura S. Schor
The century under review in this course (1789-1906) is one of great
turbulence and change. It was a time of political, economic, social and
cultural revolutions that stirred Europeans to move out of their
traditional ways of life and into the modern world. These changes
proceeded at differing paces and in different ways in England, already
a parliamentary monarchy at the start of the period; in France, where
revolution took its most radical form; in Austria-Hungary, a vast area
of uneven development; in the emerging Prussia, a series of independent
cities at the start of this period; in Italy, still divided into many
pieces with a powerful Papal presence; and in Spain, a country that was
least involved with European changes in this period. On the Eastern
Front, the Russian Empire was ruled by Tsars and alternated between
western and eastern influences throughout the century. The Middle East
had already become important to England and France but was still under
the control of the weakened Ottoman Empire, while the United States
struggled with civil war and the idea of “manifest destiny.”
The Jewish population of Europe grew rapidly during the nineteenth
century and the legal status of Jews changed in tandem with the
political changes in each region. Like other Europeans, Jews emerged
from centuries of traditional life to a new lifestyle, one that was
later called “emancipated”. By the end of the century Jews had become
citizens in the countries in which they resided; in line with their new
rights as individual citizens, they lost communal rights. Many expected
Jews to slowly assimilate into the Christian populations of England,
France and Germany. Others thought that they would remain Jewish in the
confines of their homes and synagogues and outwardly resemble their
Christian fellow-citizens. However, defying expectations, Jews began to
develop a thriving secular culture that was expressed in newspapers,
community services, literature and the arts.
Western Jews used their new freedoms, particularly freedom of the
press, to champion the cause of fellow Jews in the East, expressing
community solidarity while recognizing sharp differences in culture.
French Jews led the charge to “civilize” the Jews of the East by
establishing French-language schools and hospitals. English and German
Jews followed suit, establishing their own schools and hospitals, which
celebrated their culture.
The efforts of Western Jews were often motivated by crises. We will
study three crises in depth: The Damascus Affair, The Edgardo Mortara
Affair, and the Dreyfus Affair. Each event led to the formation of
secular Jewish action in the form of newspaper campaigns, investigative
missions, and the creation of new associations.
Texts:
Jonathan Frankel, The Damascus Affair, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
David Kertzner, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.
Paula Hyman, The Jews of Modern France, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
Michael Burns, France and the Dreyfus Affair, Boston, Bedford/St.Martin’s, 1999.
Assignments are due on the date listed below:
Jan 31—Hyman, Jews of Modern France pp. 1-35.
Feb 4— Hyman, pp.37-52.
Feb 7—Hyman, pp. 53-76.
Feb 11—Frankel, Damascus Affair, pp.1-108.
Feb 14—Frankel, pp.109-232.
Feb 18—no class
Feb 21—submit paper topic and sources
Feb 25—Frankel, pp.233-330.
Feb 28—Frankel, pp.331-401.
Mar 3—Frankel, pp. 401-448.
Mar 6—Kertzner, Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortaro, pp.3-73.
Mar 10—Kertzner, pp.74-142.
Mar 13—submit paper outline, include title and list of sources
Mar 17—Kertzner, pp. 143-204.
Mar 20—Kertzner, pp.204-299.
Mar 24—no class
Mar 26—Burns, France and the Dreyfus Affair, pp.1-40.
Mar 27—Burns, pp.40-86.
Mar 31—Burns, pp. 87-149.
Apr 3—Burns, pp. 150-191.
Apr 10, 14, 17—oral presentations
Apr 19-27—Spring Break
Apr 28—Hyman, pp.77-136.
May 1—rough draft due
May 8—Hyman, pp.137-218.
May 12—final papers due
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