Muhlenberg College is introducing three courses, the core course, Jewish Experience in a Secular Age: A History of Modern Jewish Identity, and two peripheral courses, American Jewish Life and Culture and From Zion to Zionism: A History of Jewish Nationalism.

Jewish Experience in a Secular Age: A History of Modern Jewish Identity

Professor Jessica Cooperman 

This course will explore Jewish life and society in the modern world. It will examine different ways that Jews engaged with the non-Jewish societies in which they lived, and the ways that they - whether by choice or not - continued to remain distinct from them. We will consider how traditional Jewish society was transformed by new ideas and new social realities, and look at the multifaceted ways that Jews constructed modern, secular Jewish identities in the wake of those transformations.

Course Schedule:

August 25 - Introduction, discussion of syllabus.

August 27 - Jewish Culture and Society

        David Biale, Preface from Cultures of the Jews Vol.3 (Schocken, 2002)

September 3 - Jewish Secularism, continued

        David Biale, "Not in the Heavens: The Premodern Roots of Jewish Secularism."

       Assignment due in class

 September 8 - Traditional Jewish Society

       Jacob Katz, Tradition and Crisis (Syracuse, 2000), p.11-25.

       Solomon Maimon, An Autobiography (University of Illinois Press, 2001), p.1-93.

 September 10 - Traditional Jewish Society, continued.

       Jacob Katz, Tradition and Crisis (Syracuse, 2000), p.11-25.

       Solomon Maimon, An Autobiography (University of Illinois Press, 2001), p.1-93.

 September 15 - The Enlightenment

       Immanuel Kant, "What is Enlightenment?"

       Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire, "Reflections on Religion" both from The Portable      Enlightenment Reader (Penguin Books, 1995).

 September 17 - The Jewish Question.

       Christian Wilhelm von Dohm, "Concerning the Amelioration of the Civil Status of the Jews," The Jew in the Modern World [hereafter TJMW] (Oxford, 1995).

      Johann David Michaelis, "Arguments Against Dohm," TJMW.

 September 22 - Moses Mendelssohn

        Documents by Mendelssohn, TJMW.

        Michael Meyer, The Origins of the Modern Jew (Wayne State University Press, 1967) p.11-28.

 September 24 - The Haskalah

        Documents on the Haskalah, TJMW.

        Michael Meyer, The Origins of the Modern Jew (Wayne State University Press, 1967) p.29-57.

        Recommended reading: Michael Meyer, The Origins of the Modern Jew, p.58-84.

 September 29 - The French Revolution and the Rights of Man

        Documents on Jewish Emancipation, TJMW.

        Assignment due in class

 October 6 - Napoleon, the Paris Sanhedrin, and the Spread of "Tolerance"

        Documents on the Paris Sanhedrin, TJMW.

 October 8 - Religious Reform

        Documents on Religious Reform, TJMW.

 October 13 - The Ideal of Bildung

        George Mosse, Confronting the Nation (Brandeis, 1993), p.131-145.

        Marion Kaplan on Bildung, The Yale Companion to Jewish Writing and Thought in German Culture (Yale, 1997).

       Assignment due in class

October 20 - Women, Respectability, and "German-Jewish ethnicity"

        Marion Kaplan, The Making of the Jewish Middle Class (Oxford, 1991), p. 25-84.

October 27 - Ost und West

        Steven Aschheim, Brothers and Strangers (University of Wisconsin Press), p.3-57.

October 29 - Maskilim in the East

        Documents on the Jewish Enlightenment in Russia, TJMW.

        Israel Bartal, The Jews of Eastern Europe (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006) p.58-69, 90-111

November 3 - May Laws, Pogroms and New Solutions to the Jewish Question.

        Documents on Jews life in Russia, TJMW.

        Bartal, p.143-156.

        Assignment due in class

November 5 - May Laws, Pogroms and New Solutions to the Jewish Question.

        Documents on Jewish reactions to the pogroms, TJMW.

November 10 - The National Solution

        Documents on Jewish Nationalism, TJMW.

 November 12 - The National Solution

        Documents on Jewish Nationalism, TJMW.

        Michael Berkowitz, Zionist Culture and West European Jewry Before WWI (University of        North Carolina Press, 1996), p.1-39.

November 17 - Socialists, Internationalists and the Bund

        Jonathan Frankel, "The Roots of Jewish Socialism (1881-1982: From "Populism" to  Cosmopolitanism?" in Essential Papers on Jews and the Left (NYU, 1997), p.58-77.

        Documents from TJMW

November 19 - Socialists, Internationalists and the Bund

        Antony Polonsky "The Bund in Polish Political Life, 1935-1939" in Essential Papers on Jews and the Left (NYU, 1997), p.166-197.

        Documents from TJMW

        Paper topics and bibliographies due in class

 November 24 - East European Secular Jewish Culture

        Laura Levitt, "Impossible Assimilations: American Liberalism and Jewish Difference. Revisiting Jewish Secularism," in American Quarterly (Volume 59, Number 3, September 2007), pp. 807-832.

 November 26 - East European Secular Jewish Culture

        Film: Image Before My Eyes

 December 1 - Secular Jewish Identity: East and West

        Readings TBA

 December 3 - Conclusions

 Research Papers must be submitted to me by noon on Thursday, December 11th

 
American Jewish Life and Culture
Professor Jessica Cooperman

This course will examine the history of the Jewish people in the United States from the mid-seventeenth century to the present. It will explore the social, political, economic and cultural dynamics of American Jewish life, and consider those dynamics in relation to developments in American and modern Jewish history.

Through course reading and in-class discussion, students will become acquainted with some of the major themes of American Jewish history. Readings will include both primary and secondary sources, and course assignments are designed to help students develop research and analytical skills as they learn about the American Jewish past.

Reading:

Anzia Yezierrska, The Bread Givers, New York: Persea Books, 2003
Deborah Dash Moore, GI Jews, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004
Stuart Svonkin, Jewish Against Prejudice, New York: Columbia University Press, 1997

Course Schedule:

Jan. 19 - An introduction to American Jewish Life and Culture

             American Jewish Population Estimates, 1660-2000, in Jonathan Sarna, American Judaism (Yale University Press, 2004).

Jan. 21 - The Colonial Era

            Ellen Smith, "Portraits of a Community: The Image and Experience of Early American Jews" in American Jewish Women's History (NYU Press, 2003), pp.13-25.

Jan. 26 - The Colonial Era and the American Revolution

          Hasia Diner, The Jews of the United States, Part I: The Earliest Jewish Communities, (University of California Press, 2004).

Jan. 28 - The Colonial Era and the American Revolution

          Jonathan Sarna, "The Impact of the American Revolution on American Jews," The American Jewish       Experience (New York, Holmes & Meier, 1986), pp.20-30.

          Mark Greenberg, "One Religion, Different Worlds: Sephardic and Ashkenazic Immigrants in Eighteenth Century Savannah," Jewish Roots in Southern Soil (Lebanon, NH, Brandeis University Press, 2006), pp.27-45.

Feb. 2 - Jewish Life in the Early Republic

           Memoirs by Meyer, Kohn and Seessel from Memoirs of American Jews 1775-1865, Jacob Rader Marcus ed. (Ktav Publishing House, 1974). 

          Hasia Diner, "Entering the Mainstream of Modern Jewish History: Jewish Peddlers and the American South," Jewish Roots in Southern Soil, pp.109-133.

Feb. 4 - The Civil War

          Joakim Isaacs, "Ulysses S. Grant and the Jews," in The American Jewish Experience, pp.62-72.

          Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, (The Jewish Publication Society, 2001), Chapter II "The Rabbis and the Slavery Question".

         Robert Rosen, "Jewish Confederates," Jewish Roots in Southern Soil, pp.86-108.

Feb. 9 - Building Community

          Michael A. Meyer, "German-Jewish Identity in Nineteenth-Century America, American Jewish Experience," pp.45-61.

          Cornelia Wilhelm, "Shaping the American Jewish Community: The Independent Order of B'nai B'rith, 1843-1914," in German-Jewish Identities in America, (Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies, 2003).

Feb. 11 - Building Community

           Ellen Eisenberg and Ava Kahn, Western Reality: Jewish Diversity During the "German" Period, American Jewish History, vol. 92, No.4 (September 2005), pp. 455-479.

Feb. 16 - The "Great Migration"

       Gur Alroey, "And I Remained Alone in a Vast Land: Jewish Women in the Migration from Eastern Europe," Jewish Social Studies, vol. 12, No. 3 (Spring/Summer 2006) pp.39-72.

Feb. 18 - The "Great Migration"

        Deborah Dwork, "Immigrant Jews on the Lower East Side of New York: 1880-1914," American Jewish Experience, pp.102-119.

        Essay #1 must be submitted by this day!

Feb. 23 - "Downtown" Jews - Life and Labor

        Anzia Yezierska, The Bread Givers

Feb. 25 - "Downtown" Jews - Life and Labor

       Paula Hyman, "Immigrant Women and Consumer Protest: The New York City Kosher Meat Boycott of 1902," in American Jewish Women's History (NYU Press, 2003), pp.116-128.

         Film on the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.

March 2 - "Uptown" and "Downtown"

         Daniel Soyer, "Brownstones and Brownsville: Elite Philanthropists and Immigrant Constituents at the Hebrew Education Society of Brooklyn, 1899-1929," American Jewish History, vol.88, No.2 (June, 2000), pp.181-207.

March 4 - Yiddish Culture in America

         Tony Michels, A Fire in their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New York (Harvard University Press, 2005), Chapter 4, "Purely Secular, Thoroughly Jewish: The Arbeter Ring and Yiddish Education."

March 8-12 - Classes cancelled for Spring Break

March 16 - Sephardic Jews in America

       Aviva Ben Ur, "Immigration, Ethnicity and Identity," Sephardic Jews in America (New York, New York University Press, 2009), pp.23-50.

March 18 - Adaptation and Acculturation

      Heinze, Andrew, Adapting to Abundance, (Columbia University Press, 1990), Introduction, Chapters 9&10

March 23 - Jews and Race

        Eric Goldstein, "The Unstable Other: Locating the Jew in Progressive Era Racial Discourse," American Jewish History, vol.89, No.4 (December 2001), pp.383-409.

March 25 - Jews and Race: The Interwar Years

      Film: The Jazz Singer

     Essay #2 must be submitted by this day!

March 30 - Class cancelled for Passover

April 1 - Jewish Immigration and the Quota System

      Libby Garland, "Not Quite Closed Gates: Jewish Alien Smuggling in the Post-Quota Years," American Jewish History, vol.94, No.3 (September, 2009), pp.197-224.

April 6 - Class cancelled for Passover

April 8 - American Jews and WWII

       Deborah Dash Moore, GI Jews (Harvard University Press, 2004), selected chapters.

April 13 - American Jews and the Holocaust

         Deborah Lipstadt, "Pious Sympathies and Sincere Regrets: The American News Media and the Holocaust from Krystalnacht to Bermuda, 1938-1943," Modern Judaism, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Feb., 1982), pp. 53-72.

        Rona Sheramy, "There are Times When Silence is a Sin": The Women's Division of the American Jewish Congress and the Anti-Nazi Boycott Movement," American Jewish History, vol.89, No.1 (March, 2001), pp.105-121.

April 15 - Jews and Post-War America

        Film Gentlemen's Agreement

        Research proposals and bibliographies must be submitted by this day!

April 20 - Jews and Post-War America

       Hasia Diner, The Jews of the United States, Chapter 7, "A Golden Age?" (University of California Press, 2004)

April 22 - Civil Rights and the 1960's

      Stuart Svonkin, Jewish Against Prejudice (New York, Columbia University Press, 1997), selected chapters.

Apr. 27 - Civil Rights and the 1960's

          Stuart Svonkin, Jewish Against Prejudice (New York, Columbia University Press, 1997), selected chapters.

          Debra Schultz, "Going South: Jewish Women in the Civil Rights Movement," American Jewish Women's History, pp.281-196.

          Clive Webb, "A Tangled Web: Black Jewish Relations in the Twentieth-Century South," Jewish Roots in Southern Soil, pp.192-209.

April 29 - Jewish Feminism

       Paula Hyman, "Jewish Feminism Faces the Women's Movement," American Jewish Women's History, pp.297-312.

May 4 - Jews and American Popular Culture

       Riv-Ellen Prell,  'Rage and Representation: Jewish Gender Stereotypes in American Culture, ' American Jewish Women's History, pp.238-255.

May 6 - American Jewish Life Today

     Closing discussion