Queens College's most recent course is Contemporary Jewish Women's Identity and Experience in the U.S.: Survival, Resistance, Rebellion. Previous courses include Jews Beyond Religion: Aspects of Secular Judaism and Writing Jewish Diversity: Modern and Post-Modern.
Contemporary Jewish Women's Identity and Experience in the U.S.:
Survival/Resistance/Rebellion
Professor Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz
If asked to picture a Jew, the great majority of folks, including many
Jews, would imagine a man– not just any man but someone of European
origins with objects, hair, clothing, etc. which signify religious
observance. This class focuses on seeing through a double relatively
new lens, placing women and secularism at the center of our inquiry.
Deconstructing the normative male Jew, we will notice all the doors
that open (or close) when confronting diversity. We will survey briefly
ancestral terrain, recognizing in the history of American Jewish women
both trauma and exhilaration. Examining themes of assimilation and
anti-semitism, and resistance to these, we will theorize the
shape and content of secularism for Jewish women in the U.S., and
explore connections between secularism and political activism. Finally
we will sum up perhaps a new enlarged sense of Jewish family and
community that embraces rather than ignores difference.
Texts:
Beck, Evelyn, ed. Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology. Boston: Beacon Press, 1989. [Girls]
Bridges: A Journal for Jewish Feminists and Our Friends, vol.iv.no.1 (1994)
Forman, Raicus, Swartz and Wolfe, eds. Found Treasures: Stories by Yiddish Women Writers. Toronto:
Second Story Press, 1994. [Treasures]
Goldstein, Rebecca. Mazel. NY: Penguin, 1996.
Kaye/Kantrowitz, Melanie and Irena Klepfisz, eds. The Tribe of Dina: A Jewish Women's Anthology.
Boston: Beacon Press, 1989. [Dina]
Khazzoom, Loolwa, ed. The Flying Camel: Essays on Identity by Women of North African and Middle
Eastern Jewish Heritage. New York: Seal Press/Avon, 2003. [Camel]
Matza, Diane, ed. Sephardic-American Voices. Hanover, NH: Brandeis Presss, 1997.[Voices]
Peskowitz, Miriam and Laura Levitt, eds. Judaism Since Gender. NY: Routledge, 1997. [Gender]
Segal, Lore. Other People’s Houses. New York: New Press, 1994.
Stavans, Ilan, ed. The Schocken Book of Modern Sephardic Literature. NY: Schocken, 2005. recommended
Tax, Meredith. Rivington Street. NY: Avon, 1982.
Weinberg, Sydney Stahl. The World of Our Mothers. (recommended)
Yezierska, Anzia. How I Found America. NY: Persea, 1991.
and selected articles, stories, and poems
Outline:
Week#:
1. Introduction
What is Jewish: Religion, Race, Culture, Nation?
Dina: Ellen Hawley, "A Brief History on the Subject of Women"
Enid Dame, "Lilith's Sestina"
Gloria De Vidas Kirchheimer, “Food of Love”
2-3. Our Ancestors Speak
Treasures: Preface and Introduction, pp.15-62.
Esther Singer Kreitman, "The New World" (77)
Rokhl Brokhes, "The Zogerin" (85)
Dora Schulner, "Reyzele's Wedding" (91)
Fradel Schtok, "The Veil" (99)
Ida Maze, "Dina" (131)
Shira Gorshman, "Unspoken Hearts" (145)
Malke Lee, "Through the Eyes of Childhood" (159)
Dina: Rita Arditti, “To Be a Hanu”
Meredith Tax, Rivington Street
Anzia Yezierska, How I found America.
4. Legacy of Inquisition and Expulsion
Voices Rena Varon Down , Once – A Bright Fire
Ruth Behar, “Nameless Daughter”
5-6 The Holocaust/in America
Treasures: Rachel Korn, "The Road of No Return"
Blume Lempel, "Correspondents"
Chava Rosenfarb, "Edgia's Revenge"
Dina: Rose Magyar, "My Life Was Rich" (163)
Elza Frydrych Shatzkin, ""Przemysl-December 1942" (165)
Jayne Sorkin, "Ima" (129)
Jennifer Krebs, "Short Black Hair" (100)
Teya Schaffer, "With Love, Lena." (168)
Girls: Irena Klepfisz, from "Bashert"; (xlvii)
"Resisting and Surviving America"; (112)
"Yom Hashoah, Yom Yerushalayim: A Meditation" (260)
Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, "Some Notes on Jewish Lesbian Identity" (34);
"Kaddish" (107)
Lore Segal, Other People’s Houses
7. Assimilation and Resistance
Dina: Gloria DeVidas Kirchheimer, "Food of Love"
Aishe Berger, "Nose Is a Country" (134)
Kadia Molodowsky, "The Lost Shabes"
Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, "Jewish Food, Jewish Children"
Irena Klepfisz, "Fradel Schtok"; Irena Klepfisz, “Secular Jewish Identity: Yidishkayt in America”
Marilyn Zuckerman, "America the Melting Pot" (148)
Elinor Spielberg, "Tall and Straight as a Czarina"
Bridges Ruth Behar, "Mi Puente/My Bridge: Revisiting a Jewish Childhood in Cuba"
Karen Sacks, "How Did Jews Become White Folks?"
8. -Midterm, in class, essay, open book
Workshop on Resisting Anti-Semitism
9. Theorizing Jewish Women’s Secularism
Dina Butler and Rosenblum, "Reverberations"
Vera Williams, "My Mother, Leah, and George Sand"
Gender Riv-Ellen Prell. “American Jewish Culture Through a Gender-Tinted Lens”
Ann Pellegrini, “Interarticulations: Gender, Race, and the Jewish Woman Question”
Naomi Seidman, “Theorizing Jeiwh Patriarchy in extremis”
10, Shaping a Secular Feminist Judaism and Questions of (Secular?) Ritual
Muriel Rukeyser, Adrienne Rich, Enid Dame, poems
Laura Levitt and Sue Ann Wasserman, "Mikvah Ceremony for Laura"
Dina Susie Gaynes, “Rosh Hashanah 5743
“Barsa” in Bridges
Tashlekh
11 -12. Jewish Secularism and Activism
Treasures: Miriam Raskin, "Zlatke" (105)
Dora Schulner, "Ester" (123)
Dina: Sarah Schulman, "When We Were Very Young" (262)
Enid Dame, "Ethel Rosenberg: A Sestina" (284)
Interviews with Lil Moed (286) and Grace Paley (322)
*Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, "Stayed on Freedom: Jew in the Civil Rights Movement, and After"
Bridges: Rebecca Alpert, "If Not Now, When: A Jewish Delegation in Haiti" (89)
Irena Klepfisz, " Feminism, yidishkayt, and the Politics of Memory"
Jewish Women’s Archives, Cambridge
“Jewish Women Changing America: Cross-Generational Conversations: The Scholar & Feminist
OnLine, issue 5.1, Barnard Women’s Center.
13. Making Family and Community Across Differences
Camel: Rachel Wahba, "Looking Deeper: Benign Ignorance or Persistent Resistance?"
Ruth Knafo Setton, “The Life and Times of Ruth of the Jungle”
Ella Shohat,”Ref;lections of an Arab Jew”
Grace Paley, "Friends"
Panel (tentative)
Beejhy Barhany, Founder and director Beta Israel of North America
Esther Kaplan, Nation Institute and Beyond the Pale Radio
Cole Kravits, transgender activist
Tami Gold, Hunter College , lesbian co-parenting four daughters.
14- 15. Presentations
Jews Beyond Religion: Aspects of Secular Judaism
Professor Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz
Modernity:
How did Jews change yet remain Jews? In this course we’ll explore the
rise of secular Jewish cultures, asking such questions as: What is the
process of secularization? What do we mean by cultural or secular Jew?
How are secular/cultural Jews claiming space on the Jewish spectrum?
We’ll combine analytical academic readings with film and other art
forms, and lectures and discussions leavened by guest speakers and
performers. We’ll examine intellectual and political Jewish wrestling
with religion, nation, and culture, race and gender, looking at
competing notions of what binds Jews together: shared family and
peoplehood? or common doctrine and practice? We’ll study the emergence
of political movements such as the Bund, Ottomanism, Zionisms and other
nationalisms, and investigate the status of Diasporism.
Course Outline:
Week #
1/ Introduction, syllabus: What is Jewish?
film: The Tribe
Rosaly DeMaios Roffman, “Sometimes People Think”
Sami Shalom Chetrit, “Who is a Jew and What Kind of a Jew”
Muriel Rukeyser, “Letter from the Front”
2.Joann Sfar, The Rabbi’s Cat RRJ 1; NJ1
Film, Adio Kerida
3. Prefiguring Modernity: Spinoza RRJ2
Rebecca Goldstein, Betraying Spinoza 17-67
4. Sarah Abrevaya Stein, Making Jews Modern 1-19, 202-14 NJ2
Guest Performance Artist Jenny Romaine
5. film Image Before My Eyes RRJ3 write in class
Due: draft paragraph for your project
6. Paula Hyman, Gender and Assimilation in Modern Jewish History, 1-49
Sara Reguer, “The World of Women,” in Reeva Spector Simon, et al, eds. The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in Modern Times, 235-50
Guest singer and musicologist, Adrienne Cooper: Yiddish Songs of Women and War
7. Mar 18 Anti-semitism RRJ4
April Rosenblum, The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere
Kaye/Kantrowtiz, Colors of Jews (COJ) chapter 1
8. Jews and Race NJ4
COJ, ch. 2
Guest filmmaker Joel Katz, Strange Fruit
9. Justice-Seeking RRJ5
COJ ch.4 & 5
10. Jewish Diversity NJ5
COJ ch 3
David Biale, Cultures of the Jews. Intro, to Part II, “Diversities of Diaspora” }305-386
Raymond Scheindlin, “Merchants and Intellectuals, Rabbis and Poets,” in Biale}
11. Nationalisms
Rachel Simon, “Zionism,” in Simon, et al, 65-80
Herzl 11-16; Dubnow 79-89 in Renee Kogel and Zev Katz, eds. Judaism in a Secular Age: An anthology
12. Non-Jewish Jews
Arendt, Deutscher 195-212; Goldman 158-64 in Kogel and Katz, eds.:
COJ ch 6
13. Catch up readings, leftover arguments and evaluation; begin presentations.
14. Complete presentations
Due: Final Writing and portfolios
Texts and collateral readings:
Sfar, Joann. The Rabbi’s Cat, trans., Alexis Siegel and Anjali Singh.
Kaye/Kantrowitz, Melanie. The Colors of Jews: Racial Politics and Radical Diasporism.
Rosenblum, April. The Past Didn't Go Anywhere.
on e-reserve link http://www.reserve.qc.edu/eres/coursepage.aspx?cid=2876
Arendt, Hannah. The Jew as Pariah.
Berger, Peter L. The Sacred Canopy and The Heretical Imperative.
Biale, David. Cultures of the Jews.
Deutscher, Isaac. The Non-Jewish Jew and Other Essays.
Goldstein, Rebecca. Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity.
Hyman, Paula. Gender and Assimilation in Modern Jewish History.
Hertzberg, Arthur, ed. The Zionist Idea.
Jacobs, Jack. Jewish Politics in Eastern Europe: the Bund at 100.
Kaye/Kantrowitz, Melanie and Irena Klepfisz, eds. The Tribe of Dina.
Katz, Jacob. Out of the Ghetto.
Klepfisz, Irena. “Di mames, dos loshn/The mothers, the language: Feminism, Yidishkayt, and the Politics of Memory.” Bridges 4.1: 12-47.
Kogel, Renee and Zev Katz, eds. Judaism in a Secular Age: An anthology of Secular Humanistic Jewish Thought
Mendelsohn, Ezra. Struggle in the Pale; the Formative Years of the Jewish Workers’ Movement in Tsarist Russia.
Mendes-Flohr, Paul and Jehuda Reinhard. The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History.
Mosse, George. Towards the Final Solution: A History of European Racism.
Neimark, Marilyn Kleinberg,“What We’ve Always Known,” in Kushner and Solomon, eds. Wrestling With Zion.
Segev, Tom. The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust.
Seidman, Naomi.“Lawless Attachments, One Night Stands. . ,” in Boyarin, 279-305.
Shepherd, Naomi. A Price Below Rubies: Jewish Women as Rebels and Radicals.
Simon, Reeva Spector, Michael Menachem Laskier, and Sara Regeur, eds. The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa
Stein, Sarah Abrevaya. Making Jews Modern: The Yiddish and Ladino Press in the Russian And Ottoman Empires.
Yovel, Yirniyahu. Spinoza and Other Heretics: The Marrano of Reason
Writing Jewish Diversity: Modern and Post-Modern
Professor Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz
This
class takes as its center the diaspora, the scattered paths Jews have
taken, especially the paths of secular Jews, and the voices that have
emerged from these differences. We will be seeking to de- center the
male religious Ashkenazi narrative; not to exclude but to challenge the
assumption of normativity. Readings will include fiction, memoirs,
drama, poetry, and graphic novels. Students will be expected to keep a
reader’s journal, to write a take-home midterm, attend a secular Jewish
cultural event and write a brief review. At the semester’s end,
students will write and present to the class a major paper, to be
discussed, or a narrative drawing on Jewish themes or stories.
Required Texts:
Babel, Isaac. Collected Stories
Ginsberg, Allen. Howl
Kushner, Tony. Angels in America, part I.
Memmi, Albert. The Pillar of Salt.
Paley, Grace. Collected Stories.
Prose, Francine. Guided Tours of Hell.
Segal, Lore. Her First American: A Novel.
Sfar, Joann. The Rabbi’s Cat.
Spiegelman, Art. Maus, vol. 1 My Father Bleeds History and Maus, vol. 2 And here my troubles begin
& assorted poems and stories.
Course Outline:
Week 1. Introduction, syllabus: What is Jewish?
Film: The Tribe
Rosaly DeMaios Roffman, “Sometimes People Think”
Sami Shalom Chetrit, “Who is a Jew and What Kind of a Jew”
2. Ruth Knafo Setton, “Ten Ways to Recognize a Sephardic ‘Jew-ess’
Joann Sfar, The Rabbi’s Cat
Due: Response Journal #1
3. Albert Memmi, The Pillar of Salt
4. Memmi, Salt
Film, Adio Kerida
Due: Response Journal #2
5. Lore Segal, Her First American
Due: Response Journal #3
6. Segal, First American
(review Rabbi’s Cat & Maus)
Due: comic strip
7. Art Spiegelman, Maus I & II
Due: Response Journal #4
Film: Primo
8. Allen Ginsberg, Howl
Due: Response Journal #5
Film: Life & Times of Allen Ginsberg
9. Grace Paley, stories
Due: Midterm
Due: Paragraph: your idea for project or paper
10. Isaac Babel, stories
Francine Prose, Guided Tours of Hell.
Due: Journal #6
11. Tony Kushner, Angels in America part 1
12. Documentary on Kushner, Wrestling with Angels
13. Presentations, leftover arguments and evaluation.
14. Completing presentations
Due: Final Writing and portfolios
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