How did social, political and cultural factors enable Jews to secularize and acculturate without fully assimilating? The roles of culture, gender and politics in creating permeable boundaries between Jews and non-Jews will be explored. Three courses are being offered: Secular Jewish Identity in the Modern World, Judaism and Modernity: Pluralities of Jewish Culture since the Enlightenment, and The "Vanishing" American Jew? The Emergence of Secular Judaism in America. The Spring Semester will include the course, Development of Jewish Intellectual Roots: Judaism and Modernity: Modern Varieties of Jewish Culture.

Secular Jewish Identity in the Modern World

Count Clermont-Tonnere, one of the chief advocates for Jewish Emancipation in the French National Assembly summed up the promise of Emancipation in 1791 writing: “To the Jews as individuals, everything; to the Jews as a nation, nothing.” Faced with this opportunity for complete political equality as individual citizens, Jews rushed to shed their distinctive religious practices and corporate organization in order to gain social acceptance. They attended secular universities, declared allegiance to their countries of origin, and adopted the social and cultural habits of their fellow citizens. Yet, even in the face of tremendous social, economic, and political pressure to fully assimilate, Jewish communities maintained a distinctive Jewish identity.

This course utilizes recent historical research to explore the social, political, and cultural factors that enabled Jews to secularize and acculturate without fully assimilating. The class pays particular attention to the role of culture, gender, and politics in creating permeable boundaries between Jews and non-Jews. In addition, focusing on three geographical regions (Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and, to a lesser extent, the United States ) enables this class to explore the ways in which different historical contexts engendered variegated approaches towards acculturation. By exploring these dimensions of modern Jewish life, this course will shed light on the nature of secular Jewish identity in the modern world.

Course Readings:

Paula Hyman, "The Jews of Modern France"
Steven J. Zipperstein, "The Jews of Odessa: A Cultural History"
Michael Brenner, "Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany"
Primo Levi, "Survival in Auschwitz"
Bernard Wasserstein, "Vanishing Diaspora: The Jews in Europe Since 1945"

Course schedule:

I. Emancipation and the End of Rabbinic Autonomy

II. Western Europe

French Jewry: The First to Citizenship and the Price of Emancipation
The Path of English Jews: Peddlars, Hawkes and Petty Criminals

III. Germany

The Creation of a Jewish "Sub-Culture" (1780-1840)
Jewish Identity Formation in the Domestic Sphere (1871-1918)
Reviving Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany (1914-1933)

IV. The Russian Empire

The Limits of Emancipation
The Development of Jewish Culture in Russia
Secular Politics and Jewish Identity from Kishinev to WWI

V. America

The Importance of Old-World Communal Ties in American Integration
Consumption and Cultural Assimilation
Creating a Distinct Middle-Class Culture of American Jewish Life
Conclusion: Defining Jewish Identity

Readings will include:

Jacob Katz, "Out of the Ghetto"
Michael Graetz, "The Jews in Nineteenth-Century France: From the French Revolution to the Alliance Israelite Universelle"
David Sorkin, "Transformation of German Jews"
Ezra Mendelsohn, "On Modern Jewish Politics"
Daniel Soyer, "Jewish Immigration Association and American Identity in New York, 1880-1939
Deborah Dash Moore, "At Home in America: Second Generation New York Jews"
Gerson Cohen, "The Blessings of Assimilation"


Judaism and Modernity: Pluralities of Jewish Culture since the Enlightenment

The philosophical and social upheavals of the modern period severely undermined many of the traditional theological and religious justifications for Jewish life. Divine revelation as the source of philosophical knowledge and religious praxis lost its authority in the face of the Enlightenment's secular nd scientific claims. In response to these challenges, Jewish thinkers created a number of strategies for justifying Jewish life that remained compatible with the secular assumptions of modern political, intellectual and cultural movements. This course explores these philosophical responses. Students will gain an appreciation for the complex relationship between Jewish and general intellectual thought, as well as the centrality of socio-political concerns in defining Jewish thought.

Course Readings:

Moses Mendelssohn, "Jerusalem, or On Religious Power and Judaism"
Michael A. Meyer, "Response to Modernity: A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism"
Theodor Herzl, "The Jewish State"
Franz Rosenzweig, "On Jewish Learning"
Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, "Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory"
Yaakov Malkin, "Secular Judaism: Faith, Values, and Spirituality"

Course schedule:

Introductory meeting
Judaism and the Beginnings of Modernity
Spinoza and the Enlightenment
Mendelssohn on Religious Power
Mendelssohn on Judaism
Redefining Judaism
The Foundation for Reform
Wissenschaft des Judentums
Wissenschaft des Judentums: Primary Sources
Reform in Nineteenth Century America
Political Zionism
Cultural Zionism
A Debate on Zionism and Messianism
A Jewish Renaissance
Debating Jewish Learning
Horace Kallen and the Development of Cultural Pluralism in America
Judaism as a Civilization
History, Memory, and Historiography
Judaism Redefined as Secular Judaism
Conclusions


The 'Vanishing" American Jew? The Emergence of Secular Judaism in America

Jews' successful integration into the social, cultural, and political fabric of the United States often has been celebrated, but at the same time has led to profound anxieties about the future of American Jewry as a distinct group. A number of recent publications have claimed that, because of factors such as intermarriage, declining religious observance, and success and acceptance, American Jews are soon to disappear. This course will examine the most influential of these studies, and question one pervasive assumption which they share - that religion must provide the foundation for the future of Jewish self-definition. As we read these defenses of Jewish religion, we will consider other factors - such as culture, history, memory, and familial ties - that also have defined Jewish identity in the late-twentieth and early twentieth-first centuries.

Students will read a number of the most popular and influential books that demonstrate American Jews' "survival anxiety," as well as some of the most recent Jewish population surveys that have helped to contribute to anxieties about "vanishing" American Jews. The course will also explore the origins and values of Judaism as a culture.


Development of Jewish Intellectual Roots; Judaism and Modernity: Modern Varieties of Jewish Culture

This course will examine Judaism's evolution in the wake of the collapse of the traditional Jewish community and the emergence of new forms of communal expression and identities in the post-Enlightenment era. The course will include an examination of the breakup of the ghetto, leading to modalities of Jewish identity based not on religion, but on secular ideologies and modern community. The 'modern options' which will be examined will be: new varieties of belief, secularism and nationalism, communalism, and ethno-cultural identity. These will be reviewed within the context of the critical processes and events of the 19th and 20th centuries including the following: the collapse of the traditional Jewish community; rise and failure of Western European liberalism; impact of Eastern European persecution; emergence of new ideologies (Zionism, socialism); mass immigration to the new world; rise of Zionism in Palestine/Israel; assimilative pressures in North America; the Holocaust; the State of Israel; and Jewish identity in the 21st Century. Contextually, the Jewish "story" will be discussed in the framework of the profound changes that affected the non-Jewish world in modern times.

Readings will include:

Alan Dershowitz, "The Vanishing American Jew"
Samuel Heilman, "Portrait of American Jews: The Last Half of the Twentieth Century"
Steven Cohen and Arnold Eisen, "The Jew Within: Self, Family, and Community in America"
Douglas Rushkoff, "Nothing Sacred: The Truth about Judaism"
Philip Roth, "The Plot Against America"
American Jewish Identity Survey (2001)
National Jewish Population Surveys of 1990 and 2000-2001