Temple University has the only Certificate Program in Secular Jewish Studies in North America, with two core courses in Secular Jewish Civilizations - From Spinoza to Seinfeld: A History of Jewish Secularism and Jewtopias! The Secular Promised Lands of Communism, Zionism, and America. Other courses include From The Torah to The Talmud, Race and Judaism, Ancient Jewish History, Jews and Sports, and Jewish and Muslim Women.
Jewish Secular Civilizations I - From Spinoza to Seinfeld: A History of Jewish Secularism
Professor Elliot Ratzman
Course Description:
Is there something in Seinfeld’s gestures that is quintessentially Jewish? Is the ex-communicated philosopher Spinoza a “Jewish” thinker? Can atheist Jews “believe” in Judaism? How can one be Jewish and not believe in the supernatural? Jewish identity in the modern world is conflicted – caught between a powerful religious tradition and the dynamic forces of progress, science, capitalism, and liberalism. This course is a selective survey of Modern Jewish history, thought, and politics from the vantage point of Jewish secularism. We will not directly address the details of Jewish religious practice, the beliefs of orthodox Jews, or the history of the various streams of denominational Judaism. Instead, we will focus on how Jews have critiqued Jewish religion tradition, and in turn created new traditions, new Jewish politics, and new Jewish cultures. Jewish Secularism raises problems about the nature and viability of “traditions”, “faith”, “belief”, and “practice” in the modern world.
Our primary reading will be texts: philosophy, edicts, testimonies, manifestos, short stories, etc. Some of them are ‘artifacts’ for us to study and appreciate, others are still ‘in play’ containing ideas still inspiring, puzzling or otherwise. These readings will be supplemented by secondary sources, and class lecture.
Required texts (available at the bookstore and on library reserves):
Spinoza: Theological-Political Treatise (Paperback) by Jonathan Israel (Editor), Michael Silverthorne (Editor) Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (2007) $19.95
Moses and Monotheism by Sigmund Freud Vintage; 1 edition (1955) $10
Real Jews: Secular Versus Ultra-Orthodox: The Struggle for Jewish Identity in Israel (Hardcover) by Noah Efron Basic Books (2003) $27.50
My Life As a Radical Jewish Woman: Memoirs of a Zionist Feminist in Poland by Puah Rakovska (Author), Paula E. Hyman (Editor), Indiana University Press; $19.95
Nothing Sacred: The Truth About Judaism by Douglas Rushkoff. Three Rivers Press (2004) $14
Class Sessions (subject to minor changes)
Part I. Modernity, The Secular, and Baruch Spinoza
Questions to be explored: What sort of culture should or could emerge from the criticism of religion? In what ways do religious ideas and practices affect human life? How should we moderns approach sacred texts and the claims of religion? Can religious claims/culture and scientific-philosophical claims/culture endure peacefully side-by-side? How does Spinoza addressing these questions?
Week One Introduction
-Gershom Scholem, “Judaism” in Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought. Arthur Cohen, Paul Mendes-Flohr (eds), Free Press, 1987. pp. 505-508
-Jonathan Sarna, "The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of Secular Judaism." Contemplate: The International Journal of Cultural Thought 4 (2008), pp.3-13.
-Yirmiyahu Yovel "Spinoza, the First Secular Jew?" Tikkun, 5:1, pp. 40-42, 94-96.
-Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise [TPT]. Jonathan Israel (ed, Trans.). Introduction viii-xxxiv.
Week Two Spinoza’s World and Impact
-Spinoza TPT. Preface, Chapter 7. pp. 1-12, 97-118.
-Spinoza, TPT. Chapters 1-3. pp. 13-56.
-Spinoza, TPT. Chapters 4, 5, 12. pp. 57-81,163-171.
Week Three The Challenge to Jewish Belief and Practice
-Spinoza, TPT. Chapters 13-15. pp.172-185.
-Spinoza, TPT. Chapters 16-18. pp.186-238.
-Spinoza, TPT. Chapters 18, 19, 20. pp.230-259.
First Paper topics made available.
Part II: The Transformation of Judaism in the Modern Era
Key Questions to Be Explored: How does the material, legal, and political conditions of modernity effect the transformation of Jewish life? In what ways do Jews reinterpret the meaning of being Jewish and/or Judaism? What are the various forms of Jewish life available in modernity? How Jewish are the radical movements populated by Jews? What are we to think about Israel, Zionism past, present, and future? In what ways does the Holocaust effect our thinking about religious identity in general, Judaism in particular? Can there be a secular Jewish culture? How crucial is supernaturalism to Jewish identity?
Week Four Emancipation and Enlightenment
-Emancipation Readings: Christian Wilhelm Von Dohm: Concerning the Amelioration of the Civil Status of the Jews (1781) pp.28-36. Joseph II: Edict of Tolerance (1782) pp.36-40. Moses Mendelssohn: Response to Dohm (1782) pp.44-47. Abbe Gregoire: An Essay on the Physical, Moral, and Political Reformation of the Jews (1789) pp.49-53. in The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History (second edition); Paul Mendes-Flohr, Jehuda Reinharz (eds). Oxford 1995.
-Enlightenment Readings: Moses Mendelssohn Visits the Seer of Koenigsberg (1777), p.61. Sulamith: Call for Religious Enlightenment, pp.86-87. Moses Mendelssohn: On the Curtailment of Jewish Juridical Autonomy (1782), pp.87-90. David Friedlaender: On the Self-Development and the Abolishment of Jewish Autonomy, pp.90-91. Moses Mendelssohn: Judaism in the Cornerstone of Christianity; Judaism as Revealed Legislation, pp.96-99. in The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History (second edition); Paul Mendes-Flohr, Jehuda Reinharz (eds). Oxford 1995.
-Karl Marx, (selections), “On the Jewish Question” (online).
First paper, 5-7 pages, on Spinoza due
Week Five European Jewish Radicalism: Marxism and Zionism
-Karl Marx, “On the Jewish Question” (online)
-Edmund Silberner, “Was Marx an Anti-Semite?” pp.362-401.
-Shlomo Avineri, “Marx and Jewish Emancipation,” pp. 402-409 in Essential Papers on Jews and the Left. Ezra Mendelsohn (ed). NYU Press, 1997.
Recommended: Isaiah Berlin,“The Life and Opinions of Moses Hess” in Essential Papers on Jews and the Left. Ezra Mendelsohn (ed). NYU Press, 1997, pp.21-57.
-April Rosenblum, “The Jewish Bund” pp.1-8.
-Jonathan Frankel, “The Roots of ‘Jewish Socialism’ (1881-1892): From ‘Populism’ to ‘Cosmopolitanism’?” in Essential Papers on Jews and the Left. Ezra Mendelsohn (ed). NYU Press, 1997, pp.58-77.
-Zionism Readings—The Bilu: Manifesto (1882), pp.532-533. Theodor Herzl: A Solution of the Jewish Question (1896), pp.533-538. Protesrabbiner: Protest Against Zionism (1897), pp.538-539. The Mizrachi: Manifesto (1902), p.546. Max Nordau: Jewry of Muscle (1903), pp.547-548. Seventh Zionist Congress: Anti-Uganda Resolution, Resolution on Palestine (1905). Ber Borochov: Program for Proletarian Zionism (1906), pp.552-554. Hashomer Hazair: Our World-View (1917), pp.577-579. Hashomer Hazair: The Case for a Bi-National Palestine (1945), pp.622-625. Moshe Shertok: Bi-Nationalism is Unworkable (1947), pp.625-627. in The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History (second edition); Paul Mendes-Flohr, Jehuda Reinharz (eds). Oxford 1995.
Week Six European Jewish Radicalism: Hebrew and Yiddish Culture
-Naomi Seidman, “A Stormy Divorce” in A Marriage Made in Heaven: The Sexual Politics of Hebrew and Yiddish. University of California Press, 1997. pp.102-131.
-Irena Klepfisz,“Secular Jewish Identity: Yidishkayt in America” Dreams of an Insomniac: Jewish Feminist Essays, Speeches and Diatribes. Eight Mountain Press, 1990, pp.143-165.
-Rakovska, My Life As a Radical. Introduction, Chapter 1. pp.1-53.
Second Paper topics made available
Week Seven European Jewish Radicalism: Feminism
-Rakovska, My Life As a Radical. Chapters 2-4. pp.53-106.
-Rakovska, My Life As a Radical. Chapters 5-7. pp.107-151.
Rakovska, My Life As a Radical. Chapters 8-10. pp.152-196.
Recommended: Anna Shternshis, Soviet and Kosher: Jewish Popular Culture in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939. Indiana University Press, 2006. Intro, Chapter 1 (“Antireligious Propaganda and The Transformation of Jewish Institutions and Traditions”) xiii-xxi, 1-43.
Week Eight From Marx to Freud’s Moses
-Freud, Moses and Monotheism pp.3-72.
-Freud, Moses and Monotheism pp.130-176.
-Einstein on Religion (selections online)
Second Paper, 5-7 pages, on Jews and radical politics due
Week Nine Interpretations of the Holocaust: Hannah Arendt
-Hannah Arendt, “The Jew as Pariah: A Hidden Tradition” 275-297.
-“Creating a Cultural Atmosphere” pp.298-302.
-“Jewish History, Revised,” pp.303-311; in The Jewish Writings, Jerome Kohn, Ron Feldman, (eds). Schocken Books, 2007.
Recommended: “The Morals of History,” pp.312-316.
-Hannah Arendt on Eichmann, Evil, and Jewish Identity
(TBA)
Week Ten Secular and Religious in the State of Israel
(TBA)
-Noah Efron, Real Jews. Introduction, Chapters 1, 2. pp.1-98.
-Noah Efron, Real Jews. Chapter 3, pp.99-142.
Week Eleven Israel and Secularism
-Noah Efron, Real Jews. Chapter 4, pp.142-168.
-Noah Efron, Real Jews. Chapter 5, pp.269-240.
-Noah Efron, Real Jews. Conclusion, pp.241-275.
Recommended: Tom Segev, Elvis in Jerusalem; A. Ravitsky “Religious and Secular Jews in Israel: A Cultural War?”; Bernard Avishai “Saving Israel from Itself – A Secular Future for the Jewish State.”
Part III: Contemporary Jewish Identity and America
Key Questions to be Explored: In what ways is the Jewish experience in America like or unlike Europe and Israel? What does the culture of Judaism in America say about the status of religion and difference in America? What are the strengths, problems, and challenges of Jewish secularism in America?
Week Twelve American Jewish Identity
-American Jewish Identity Readings—Conference of Reform Rabbis: The Pittsburgh Platform (1885), pp.468-469. Kaufmann Kohler: The Concordance of Judaism and Americanism (1911), pp.471-472. Abraham Cahan: The Russian Jew in America (1898), pp.474-476. Charles Bernheimer: Sweatshops in Philadelphia (1905) pp.481-482. David Philipson: American Judaism Will Not Be Ghettoized (1908), pp.490-491. Chaim Zhitlowsky: Our Future is America (1915), pp.491-492. Solomon Schechter: English and Hebrew Must Be the Languages of American Jewry (1904), pp.492-493. Judah Magnes: A Republic of Nationalities (1909), pp.493-496. Louis Brandeis: Zionism is Consistent with American Patriotism (1915), pp.496-497. Mordecai Kaplan: The Reconstruction of Judaism (1920), pp.499-502. The Beginning of Secular Jewish Schools (1918-1920), pp.502-503. in The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History (second edition); Paul Mendes-Flohr, Jehuda Reinharz (eds). Oxford 1995.
Topics for third paper made available
-Horace Kallen, “Jewish Life is National and Secular”, “Zionism and Liberalism”, “Jewish Unity,” pp.525-533.
-Mordecai Kaplan, “The Future of the American Jew,” pp.535-544.
-David Ben Gurion, “The Imperatives of the Jewish Revolution” 605-619, in The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader. Arthur Hetzberg (ed), JPS 1997.
-David Biale “The Melting Pot and Beyond,” in Insider/Outsider: American Jews and Multiculturalism. David Biale et al (eds) University of California Press.1998.
-Mitchell Cohen, “In Defense of Shatatnez: A Politics for Jews in a Multicultural America,” in Insider/Outsider: American Jews and Multiculturalism. David Biale et al (eds) University of California Press. 1998. pp. 34-54.
Week Thirteen Jewish Comedy
Excerpts from Seinfeld, Sarah Silverman, Ali G. Heeb Mag, Woody Allen’s “Zelig.”
-Dan Ben-Amos, “The "Myth" of Jewish Humour, Western Folklore 32:2, pp.112-131.
-Elliott Oring, “The People of the Joke: On the Conceptualization of a Jewish Humor,” Western Folklore, 42:4, pp.261-271.
-Carla Johnson, “Luckless in New York: The Schlemiel and the Schlimazl in Seinfeld,” Journal of Popular Film and Television 22:3,(1994) pp.116-124.
-Sander Gilman, “Jewish Jokes: Sigmund Freud and the Hidden Language of the Jews,” Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought. 7:4, pp.591-614.
-Sander Gilman, “Is Life Beautiful? Can the Shoah be Funny?” Critical Inquiry. 26:2, pp.279-308.
-Alan Dundes and Thomas Hauschild, “Auschwitz Jokes,” Western Folklore, 42:4, pp. 249-260.
Week Fourteen Cyber-Judaism
-Rushkoff, Nothing Sacred. Chapters 1, 2. pp.1-82.
Exam study guide made available
-Rushkoff, Nothing Sacred. Chapter 3. pp. 83-124.
-Rushkoff, Nothing Sacred. Chapter 5. pp. 177-238.
Third paper, 5 pages, on American Jewish culture due
Week Fifteen Conclusion: The Future of Secularism
-Rushkoff, Nothing Sacred. Chapter 5, Epilogue. pp. 239-243.
(last day of class)
Jewish Secular Civilizations II - Jewtopias! The Jewish Romance with Communism, Zionism, & America
Professor Elliot Ratzman
Jews in the modern world have dreamed of a perfect society. In the 20th century, most Jews aligned themselves to three major utopian projects: Jewish Nationalism (Zionism), Universalist Socialism (Communism), and Liberal Democracy (America). Jews migrated to the rough terrain of Palestine, to the cities of the Soviet Union, and to the shores of America lured by these promised lands. In the process, Jewish idealists created new ways of being Jewish and, so they thought, new ways of being human beings. By the end of the century, one of those dreams dissolved (Communism), another finds itself in peril (Zionism), and the third brings with it new dangers and new possibilities (America). All three movements sought to create a life free of traditional religious influence by forging a separate secular culture and politics and by doing so, helped create the contemporary West.
In this course, we'll explore the intersections of religious forms and political content by examining some major texts of idealism and disillusionment with the project of utopia-building. What leads to utopian projects? Do they always fail? Is (a Jewish) particularism compatible with (a cosmopolitan) universalism? Can one consider oneself “chosen” and advocate radical egalitarianism? The idea of Jewish secularism raises problems about the nature and viability of “traditions”, “faith”, “belief”, and “practice” in the modern world.
Our primary reading will be texts: philosophy, edicts, testimonies, manifestoes, memoirs, short stories, film and novels, etc. Some of them are 'artifacts' for us to study and appreciate, others are still 'alive' containing ideas that are still stimulating, inspiring, and puzzling. These readings will be supplemented by some secondary sources, and class lecture.
Required Texts:
Yuri Slezkine, The Jewish Century, $19
Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon, $8
Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State, $8
Theodor Herzl, Altneuland (Old-New Land), $18
Michael Walzer, Exodus and Revolution, $16
Tom Segev, Elvis in Jerusalem, $15
Michael Chabon, Yiddish Policemen's Union, $16
Tony Kushner, Angels in America, $15
Course Outline:
Week 1. Utopia: Practical Problems, Jewish Politics, and Religious Concepts
Introduction: Getting to the Promised Land
Martin Luther King Jr. "I've Seen the Promised Land (1968"
Yuri Slezkine, The Jewish Century, Introduction, Chapter 1, pp. 1-39
"Chosenness" "Messianism" "Secularism" "Utopia" in Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought
Week 2. The Jewish Question, Modernity, and Marxism
Slezkine, The Jewish Century, Chapter 2, pp. 40-104
Karl Marx, "On the Jewish Question"; "Introduction to Critique of Hegel"
Marx and Engels, "Communist Manifesto"; Moses Hess, Rome and Jerusalem
Due: A one-page summary of Marx and Hess on Judaism
Week 3. The Jewish Romance with Communism
Slezkine, The Jewish Century, Chapter 3, 105-203
Birobidzhan: Stalin's Forgotten Zion
Leder, My Life in Stalinist Russia (Selections)
Week 4. Communist Dystopia and Secular Jewish Promised Lands
Slezkine, Chapter 4, 204-227
Emma Goldman, My Life (Selections)
Slezkine, Chapter 4, 227-254
Slezkine, Chapter 4, 254-275
Fiddler on the Roof
First paper topics on Communism handed out in class
Week 5. Stalinism and Existentialism
Koestler, Darkness at Noon
Slezkine, Chapter 4, 275-297
Koestler, Darkness at Noon, Slezkine, Chapter 4, 297-329
Koestler, Darkness at Noon, Nathan Englander, "The 27th Man"
For the Relief of Unbearable Urges
Week 6. Zionism as Utopia
Herzl, Alt-Neuland
Herzl, Alt-Neuland
Herzl, Alt-Neuland
First paper due in class
Week 7. Zionism as Realistic Utopia
Herzl, The Jewish State
Herzl, The Jewish State
Herzl, The Jewish State
Week 8. Spring Break
Week 9. Zionist Visions Right and Left
Tom Segev, Elvis in Jerusalem; David Ben Gurion, Ber Berochov (selections)
Segev, Elvis in Jerusalem; Ahad Ha'Am (selections)
Segev, Elvis in Jerusalem; Zeev Jabotinsky (selections, Samson)
Second paper topics on Israel and Exile handed in class
Week 9. The Reception of the Exodus Narrative
Michael Walzer, Exodus and Revolution, Intro, Chapter 1, pp. 1-40
Michael Walzer, Exodus and Revolution, Chapter 2, pp. 41-70
Michael Walzer, Exodus and Revolution, Chapter 3, pp. 71-98
Week 10. Passover Politics and Post-Zionism
Michael Walzer, Exodus and Revolution, Chapter 4 - end. pp. 99-152
Edward Said, "Michael Walzer's Exodus and Revolution: A Canaanite Reading
Joel Schalit, "My Own Private Israel," David Rackoff "Arise ye Wretched of the Earth," Jeff Halper, "The Matrix of Control"
Second paper due in class
Week 11. The Melting Pot? The American Immigrant Experience
The Jewish Americans (PBS, selections); Horace Kallen, "Democracy vs. the Melting Pot"; Mitchell Cohen, "In Defense of Shaatnez" in Insider/Outsider
The Jewish Americans; Mary Antin, The Promised Land (selections)
The Jewish Americans; Anzia Yezierska, The Bread Givers (selections)
Week 12. American Jewish Utopias
Slezkine, Chapter 4, 329-371, Perdita Buchan, Utopia, New Jersey
At Home in Utopia (documentary); Ian Frazier, "Utopia, The Bronx," The New Yorker
Spielberg's Munich; The Debate over Munich
Week 13. The Comedy of Jewish Utopias
Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Michael Chabon., The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Third project topics handed out in class
Week 14. Post-Utopian American Visions
Tony Kushner, Angels in America: Millennium Approaches
Tony Kushner, Angels in America: Millennium Approaches; Perestroika
Kushner, Angels in America: Perestroika
Week 15. Endings and Examining....
Michael Oren, "Zohan and the Quest for Jewish Utopia" Azure Fall 2008
George Steiner, "Our Homeland the Text"
Final project due in class
Review session
Final Exam
From The Torah to The Talmud
Professor Mark Leuchter
This course will explore the social, religious, textual and philosophical history in early Judaism from the period of the formation of the Torah (the Pentateuch) to the formation of the Talmud, the classic anthology of Rabbinic thought. This period, spanning roughly 1000 years (450BCE-500CE), was a time of tremendous intellectual creativity that saw a diversity of Jewish communities, ideologies, socio-religious policies and mythologies emerge and develop as history unfolded in light of larger international political events. We will be looking at how those events and developments left their impact on the formation of the fundamental canon of Jewish thought during this time.
Required Reading
The Bible
The Oxford History of the Biblical World (ed. Michael D. Coogan: Oxford, 1998)
How To Read the Jewish Bible (Marc Zvi Brettler, Oxford, 2007)
Roots of Rabbinic Judaism (Gabriele Boccaccini; Eerdmans, 2002)
From the Maccabees to the Mishnah (Shaye J.D. Cohen; Westminster John Knox, 1987)
Early Judaism (Martin Jaffee, University Press of Maryland, 2006)
Schedule
1. Introduction to the texts, history and issues
What does the word "torah" mean?
Authors and audiences in antiquity
Distinctions between ancient Israelite religion and early Judaism
Modes of instruction and learning in antiquity
Scribes, priests and prophets
Written and oral cultures and traditions
2. The background to the Torah: priests and Levites in Israel
Ritual, revelation and text
Literature as the record of revelation
The Aaronide priests of Jerusalem
Moses and the origins of the Levites
The idea of law in principle and practice
3. The first "torah" and extra-literary traditions of teaching
The reign and reform of King Josiah
The emergence of Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy's revision of older laws and customs
Redaction as a devotional enterprise
Text as a boundary marker
4. The prophetic and priestly responses to Deuteronomy
The conditions of exile and the prophetic corpus
Jeremiah and Ezekiel: Levite and Priestly reactions to written law
The Holiness Code (Leviticus 17-26) as a replacement text
Restoration under Persia and the different "torahs" of the time
The Homeland and the Diaspora
5. Persian Imperialism and the growth of the Torah
The Persian Empire: a brief introduction
Ezra's Mission and "the Torah of the God of Heaven"
Deuteronomy and Priestly laws in the Ezra account
The redaction of the Torah and its public role
Nehemiah, the Levites and the Torah as a political tool
The method and purpose of midrash
6. The Torah and the authoritative Hebrew Scriptures
The end of Persia and the work of the Chronicles
Changes in prophetic authority - exegesis as prophecy
The Jerusalem Temple and the dispersed Jewish world
Hebrew Scriptures vs. Hebrew Bible
Review for the Midterm Exam
7. The Hellenistic period and the beginning of sectarianism
Alexander's conquests and its international effects
Hellenism and Near Eastern Myth
Politics and the Jewish Priesthood
The Enochian Movement and Apocalyptic Tradition
The Book of Daniel, the Hasidim and prot-midrashic exegesis
Late Second Temple Jewish Literature and priestly halakha
8. The Maccabeean Period and the Qumran Texts
Sectarian vs. "Normative" religious groups
The Maccabees as priests and kings
A standardized Jewish intellectual/religious curriculum
The Qumran sectarians: who were they?
Overview of the Qumran literature
The Pesher Texts and the Temple Scroll
Essay topics assigned
9. The Pharisees
The origins of the group
"The traditions of the ancestors" - whose ancestors?
The "pairs" and the schools of Hillel and Shammai
Jesus and Paul in dialogue with the Pharisees
The Roman destruction of the Second Temple
The council at Jamnia/Javneh and the start of Rabbinic Judaism
10. The Texts and Culture of the Rabbinic Period
The Hebrew Bible in Rabbinic Perspective
The "middot" (hermenuetical principles) of Hillel and Ishmael
Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity
Halakha vs. theology
Roman politics and the Imperial cult
11. The Mishnah: A "Second' Torah
The "Second Sophistic" as a Roman philosophical trend
Jewish life in the Galilee and Rabbi Joshua Ha-Nasi
The Purpose of the Mishnah and its organization
The Tannaim and oral torah
Mishnah Avot and Biblical antecedents
12. From the Mishnah to the Talmud
The Amoraim and the "framing" of the Mishnah
The formation of the Gemara
Two Talmuds: The "Palestinian" (Yerushalmi) and the Babylonian ("Bavli")
Law and discourse as mythopoesis
Review for the final exam
Essay assignment due
Final exam to be given according to university exam schedule policy.
Race and Judaism
Professor Elliot Ratzman
Required books:
Typecasting: On the Arts and Sciences of Human Inequality, by Stuart, Elizabeth Ewen
In Every Tongue: The Racial & Ethnic Diversity of the Jewish People, by Tobin
The Jewish Body, by Melvin Konner
Part I: Theories of Race, Racism, and Racial Identity
Key Questions to be Explored: What is race? Is it a biological entity, a social category, or something else? How is the category of race connected to racism? How is the category of race connected to other categories of identity, such as sex, gender, and class?
Content goals of this section: To become familiar with the history of “race” and racism – major figures, events, and arguments. To see the connection with current debates.
Skill goals of this section: How to discern the “story” in historical and social scientific writing; How to summarize pieces of academic writing and make them accessible to a reading audience; How to anticipate objections to an argument.
1. Introduction: Are Jews a Race? What is Race?
Introduction: Judaism and Race. Martin Luther King Jr. “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” (alt: “I’ve Seen the Promised Land”)
-Bernard Malamud, “The Jewbird,” pp.323-330; “Angel Levine,” pp.157-166; “Black is my Favorite Color,” pp.331-339 in Bernard Malamud. The Complete Stories. (ed) Robert Giroux. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1997.
Konner, The Jewish Body, Preface, Chapters 1-3, ix-xiii, pp.13-48.
2. A Partial History of Race Pt. 1
-Charles Murray, “Jewish Genius,” Commentary Magazine, April 2007.
-The Jewish Body, chapter 17 (“Jewish Genes?”), pp.225-244.
Optional: -“The Great Brian” Haim Waizman July 2007
-“Evolutionary Psychology's Anti-Semite” Judith Shulevitz, Slate, 2000.
-Sander L. Gilman, “Bell Curve to Bell Jar: The Neverending Fetishistic Fascination with Jews and Intelligence,” July 2007, Nextbook.org
-Typecasting, Ch. 3 “Didot’s Invention”, Ch. 6 “Curiosity Cabinets”, Ch. 7, “Physiognomy” pp. 51-58, 71-98.
-Typecasting, Ch. 8, “Hierarchies of Humanity,” pp.99-108, Ch. 9, “Camper’s Angle,” pp.109-122.
Suggested: Chapter 10 “Tablier Rasa”, pp.123-140.
Recommended: Ariel Levy. “Either/Or: Sports, Sex, and the Case of Caster Semenya” – The New Yorker, Nov 24th, 2009
Due in class : A required, but not graded, one page (double spaced) summary of Chapter 10 “Tablier Rasa”
3. A Partial History of Race Pt. 2
-Typecasting, Chapters 11-12. “Spurzheim’s Funeral”, “Crania Americana”, pp. 141-162, skim “An American Tale,” pp.163-191.
Optional: Claudia Roth Pierpoint,“The Measure of America” (on Franz Boas) The New Yorker, March 8th, 2004.
-Typecasting Chapter 17, “Identifying the Group Within the Individual.” pp. 241-252.
-Chabad on “the Jewish Soul” (from Chabad.org)
- On Jewish Chosenness, Views by Jacobs, Eisen, Jospe, Ariel.
(from myjewishlearning.com)
-David Brooks, “The Tel Aviv Cluster” NYTimes, 1/11/10.
-Typecasting Chapter 20, “The Amazing Race.”pp. 287-308.
-Overview: Jews on Creationism & Evolution (from myjewishlearning.com)
-Rabbinic Council of America, “Statement on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design”
-Larry Yudelson, “Darwin is no Problem for Jews,” Jerusalem Post, April 5, 2006.
-David Klinghoffer, “Darwin is a Problem for the Jews”, Jerusalem Post, April 18, 2006.
-David Klinghoffer, “Don’t Doubt it” National Review. Online April 18, 2008.
4. The Politics of Race
-Ta-Nehisi Coates, “Is Obama Black Enough?” TIME, Feb 1, 2007.
- “Obama: The First Jewish President?” Tom Hundley, Chicago Tribune Dec. 12, 2008.
-Daniel Pipes, “Was Obama a Muslim?” (danielpipes.org)
DUE A two page (double-spaced) summary of various positions on Darwinism and Evolution among Jews. Emphasis on catching the essence of the issues in a readable form. Worth 10%
-Walter Benn Michaels, “Diversity's False Solace,” NYTimes, April 11, 2004.
- Alan Wolfe, “Should we Shut Up About Diversity?” Slate, Oct. 2006.
Race and Comedy: Sarah Silverman, Ali G, Seinfeld (TBA)
Optional: -K. Anthony Appiah, "Why There are no Races"Racism, ed. Leonard Harris, pp. 267-277. -Walter Benn Michaels, The Trouble With Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality. Henry Holt 2006. Chapters 1, 2. pp.21-79.
-Typecasting, ch.22, “Eugenics Goes to the Fair”, pp.343-354.
-Malcolm Gladwell, “The Courthouse Ring: Atticus Finch and the Limits of Southern Liberalism” The New Yorker, August 10, 2009.
Optional:
-George Fredrickson, “Religion and the Invention of Racism” in Racism: A Short History, Chapter 1 pp.15-48.
-Mosse, Toward the Final Solution, Chapter 7, pp.94-112. “The Mystery of Race”
Part II: History of Race, Racism and Judaism: Ancient and Modern
Key Questions to Be Explored: Are Jews a "race"? How are Jews connected to other "races"? Historically, how have Jews been seen racially? How have Jews seen themselves? What are the key racial divisions among Jews around the world? What are the key moments in the history of Judaism during which race played a fundamental role? How have these moments been understood historically? How have class, sex, gender, and sexuality played a role in defining Jewish racial categories and identities?
Practical Goals: To develop critical perspectives on historical, political, and religious issues through debate and opinionated writing.
5. Race and Identity in the Hebrew Bible
-Genesis 9: 18-29; 25:19-34; Exodus 1-2; Numbers 12 (available online)
- David Goldenberg,“The Curse of Ham: A Case of Rabbinic Racism?” Struggles in the Promised Land (1997) pp.21-51.
-R. Cohen, “Before Israel: The Canaanites as Other in Biblical Traditions” Other in Jewish Thought, pp.74-91.
-“The Biblical Roots of Jewish Identity” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 1992. Just read pp.6-16.
-Michael Walzer “The Idea of Holy War in Ancient Israel” Journal of Religious Ethics 20.2 pp.215-228.
-“The Phineas Priesthood and the White Supremacist Bible.” In Sanctified Aggression: Violent. Legacies of Biblical, Jewish and Christian Vocabularies, ed. by Jonneke Bekkenkamp, Yvonne Sherwood, T and T Clark, 2004, 120-131.
-Prince of Egypt (selections)
Optional: -Robert Allen Warrior, "A Native American Perspective: Canaanites, Cowboys, and Indians," in R. S. Sugitharajah, ed., Voices from the Margin: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1991).
6. Jewish Identity from Antiquity to Modernity, oy!
-In Every Tongue, "Jews Have Always Been Diverse," pp.67-98; "Who is a Jew? Ideology and Bloodlines" pp. 99-106.
-Shaye Cohen, "The Origins of the Matrilineal Principle in Rabbinic Law", AJS Review, 10:1, 1985, pp. 19-53.
-Ashley Montagu, “Are Jews a Race?” Man’s Most Dangerous Myth. pp.218-236.
-The Jewish Body, chapters 4, 6, pp.48-60, 71-80.
Also, 1st op-ed theses will be made available.
7. Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism and Racism
-Jewish Body, chapters 7-8, 13, pp. 81-109, 164-184.
Optional: Sander Gilman, The Jew’s Body, Routledge 1991. Preface, pp.1-9, “The Jewish Nose: Are Jews White? Or, the History of the Nose Job” pp.169-193, Conclusion: Too Black to be Jews and Too White Blacks” pp.234-243.
-Jewish Body, chapter 14, pp.185-206.
-“The Operated Jew (1893)” in The Operated Jew, trans. Jack Zipes. pp.47-74.
Optional: -Fredrickson, Racism, Chapter 2, 49-96. “The Rise of Modern Racism(s)”
-Mosse, Toward the Final Solution, Ch. 8 pp.113-128. “The Jews: Myth & Counter Myth”
-Martin Luther, “The Jews and their Lies” (skim)
Optional: -Mosse, Toward the Final Solution, Chapter 9, pp.128-149.“Infected Christianity”
Op-ed piece on Jewish History and Race.
Due on blog: three questions about the Holocaust, Nazism and Anti-Semitism for class lecture.
8. Nazism, Racism and the Holocaust
-Mosse, Toward the Final Solution, Chapters 10, 11, pp.150-190.
“The Rise of National Socialism”; “War and Revolution”
Recommended: John M Efron Defenders of the Race: Jewish Doctors and Race Science in Fin-De-Siecle Europe. Yale, 1994. Intro, chapter 1, pp.1-33.
-Fredrickson, Racism, Chapter 3, pp.97-138. “…Racism in the 20th Century”
-In class workshop on Holocaust denial.
-Mosse, Toward the Final Solution, Chapters 12-14, pp.191-238.
“From Theory to Practice”; “Racism and Mass Murder”; “Conclusion”
Optional: -Susannah Heschel, “Reading Jesus as a Nazi” in A Shadow of Glory: Reading the New Testament After the Holocaust, Tod Linafelt (ed) Routledge 2002, pp.27-41.
Recommended (on Nazi race policy): Michael Burleigh, The Racial State
9. Israel, Zionism, Racism and Ethnicity Pt I.
-Stokely Carmichael, “The Black American and Palestinian Revolution,” in Stokely Speaks: Black Power Back to Pan-Africanism. Random House, 1971, pp.131-143.
The UN Zionism as Racism Debate:
-UN resolution 3379
-Israeli Ambassador Hertzog’s response.
-Kathleen and Bill Christison, “Zionism as a Racist Ideology,” Counterpunch.org
-Leonard Fine, “Define Zionism as the Jewish Right of Return,” The Forward, 5/11/07
-Judea Pearl, “Anti-Zionism is Racism”
- Joseph Massad, “Zionism’s Internal Others: Israel and the Oriental Jews.” Journal of Palestine Studies 25(4), 1996 pp.53-68.
-Henriette Dahan-Kalev, “You’re So Pretty-You Don’t Look Moroccan,” Israel Studies 6:1, pp.1-12.
Optional: Yosef Gorny, “The ‘Melting Pot’ in Zionist Thought,” Israel Studies 6:3, pp.54-69.
-Aziza Khazzoom, “The Great Chain of Orientalism: Jewish Identity, Stigma Management,
and Ethnic Exclusion,” American Sociological Review, 68, 2003, pp.481-510.
10. Blacks, Black Jews and Jewish Identity
Special Session on Passover, Exodus, and African-America
-Albert Raboteau, “African Americans, Exodus, and the American Israel”
-Emily Raboteau, “Searching for Zion” Transitions (Reprinted in Best American Non-Required Reading 2008) 226-266.
-Tobin, In Every Tongue pp.17-66.
Don Seeman, “One People, One Blood: Public Health, Political Violence, and HIV in an Ethiopian-Israeli Setting,” Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 23: 1999, pp.159-195.
-Kaplan, Steven Kaplan, “If There are no Races, How can Jews be a "Race?" Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 2:1 (2003), pp.79-96.
-Loolwa Khazzoom, “The Racial Politics of Hebrew,” Best Jewish Writing 2002, pp.109-111.
2nd op-ed topics on Israel made available.
11. Israel, Zionism, Racism and Ethnicity Pt II
-Oren Yiftachal, “Democracy or Ethnocracy: Territory and Settler Politics in Israel/Palestine,” Middle East Report, Summer 1998, pp.9-13.
-Jeff Halper, “The Matrix of Control”
Wednesday April 7
-Ethan Michaeli, “Another Exodus: The Hebrew Israelites from Chicago to Dimona,” Black Zion: African American Religious Encounters with Judaism pp.73-87.
Optional: Merrill Singer, “Symbolic Identity Formation in an African American Religious Sect: The Black Hebrew Israelites,” Black Zion: African American Religious Encounters with Judaism. pp.55-72.
Israel Wrap-up Day: In class exercise.
Due: Op-ed on Issues of Ethnicity in Israel.
Part III: Race and Jewish Identity in the United States
Key Questions to be Explored: How have Jews seen themselves/been seen by others in the diverse landscape of the United States? What is the racial make-up of American Jews today? What is the origin and nature of the presumption of Jewish whiteness? What are the relationships among Jews and race in the United States today?
12. Jews are/of Color
On Lewis Gordon: -In Every Tongue, Forward, pp.1-16.
-Barbara Baals, “Philosophy’s Gordon Takes Race Study to a New Level,” Temple Times, March 2005
-Erin McKigney, “Professor Battles Preconceived Notions About Jews and Race” Jewish Daily Forward, Aug 07, 2007
-Walter Isaacs “Orienting Afro-American Judaism: A Critique of White Normativity in Literature on Black Jews in America” in A Companion to Afro-American Studies. pp. 512-542.
Recommended: -Bernard J Wolfson, “African American Jews: Dispelling Myths, Bridging the Divide,” Black Zion: African American Religious Encounters with Judaism. Yvonne Chireau, Nathaniel Deutsch (eds) Oxford University Press, 2000, pp.33-54.
-Benyamin Cohen, “The Prince and I” from My Jesus Year pp.95-107.
-Angela Valdez, “The Real Jews” DC City Paper, March 19, 2008
-Tobin, In Every Tongue pp.107-132; 141-152; 171-176.
-Theodore Ross, “Shalom on the Range Shalom on the range: In search of the American Crypto-Jew,” Harpers, December 2009.
13. Jews and Blacks: Civil Rights and Beyond
-Martin Luther King Jr, Abraham Joshua Heschel “What Happens to Them Happens to Me” in Bridges and Boundaries: African Americans and American Jews. Jack Salzman et al. (eds), George Braziller 1992, pp.86-90.
-Susannah Heschel, “Theological Affinities in the Writings of AJH and MLK,” in Black Zion, pp.168-86.
-Abraham Joshua Heschel, “Religion and Race”, “The White Man on Trial,” in The Insecurity of Freedom, Jewish Publication Society, 1966, pp.85-111.
Reading TBA
-Clayborne Carson “Blacks and Jews in the Civil Rights Movement: The Case of SNCC” in Bridges and Boundaries: African Americans and American Jews. (eds) Jack Salzman et al. George Braziller 1992, pp.36-49.
-Taylor Branch, “Blacks and Jews: The Uncivil War” in Bridges and Boundaries. pp.50-69.
Final topics made available
14. The Rise & Fall of a Black-Jewish Alliance
-Norman Podhoretz “My Negro Problem—And Ours,” Blacks and Jews: Alliances and Arguments, (ed) Paul Berman, Delacorte Press 1994, pp.76-96.
-James Baldwin, "Negroes Are Anti-Semitic Because They're Anti-White," in The Price of the Ticket St. Martin’s Press, 1985, pp.425-434.
-"The Voices of Jacob on the Streets of Brooklyn: Black and Jewish Israelites in and around Crown Heights", American Ethnologist, 33:3, 2006, pp.378-396.
-Laura Levitt, “Immigrant Daughters, White Jews, and Embodied Readings” The Reconstructionist, Fall 1996 pp.41-47.
Recommended: Janet Jakobsen, "Queers are Like Jews, Aren't They? Analogy and Alliance Politics," in Queer Theory and the Jewish Question, 2003.
-“Black, Jewish Vote for Obama May Signal a Renewed Tie” The Forward, 10/13/2008.
-“Obama Pushes Ahead with Plan to Rejuvenate Black-Jewish Alliance,” JTA, 1/13/2009.
15. Concluding Discussions
Last Day of Class…
-Michael Eric Dyson and Elliot Ratzman, “I say Yo, You Say Oy: Blacks, Jews, and Love,” Debating Race, pp.155-177.
Due: Final Project on race, Jews, and America
Exam
Ancient Jewish History
Professor Miriam Peskowitz
Ancient Jewish history is usually narrated as if Jew went directly from Torah to Talmud, with nothing in between. Such an account privileges the authoritative religious developments and the leadership first, of the priests who collated the core of the Torah, and second, of the early Rabbis, who collated the Mishnah, the earliest strata of the Talmud. This course explores the explosive and intriguing history between these two religious moments, and in doing so, rejects the religious chronology as the basis of historiography.
The history and textual materials from these periods in Jewish History raise many of the perennial themes that have come to inform Jewish social life over the centuries. In fact, during this period in which Jews first become Jews, these issues arise for the first time: exile, political decentralization, disagreements between Jews about what constitutes the parameters of the Jewish community; peoplehood, nation, and the boundaries of group identity, intermarriage, conversion, and the movement of Jewish identity from a territory-based definition to an ethnic definition, to a definition based in piety. These themes will be discussed through a close examination of primary texts (in translation) having to deal with: 1. The political history of Jews in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman periods; 2. The expansion and development of literature; 3. Josephus and his historical project; and 4. What non-Jewish authors write about the Jews.
Readings will include:
Milton Steinberg, As a Driven Leaf
Miriam Peskowitz, Spinning Fantasies
Martin Jaffe, Early Judaism
Lawrence Schiffman, Texts and Traditions: A Source Reader for the Study of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism
Seth Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society
Course Outline
Section A: History and Chronology
1. Introduction
In class text reading.
In-class viewing and discussion of Heritage: Civilization and the Jews, episode 3, “The Shaping of Traditions, 30-732 ce. See www.pbs.org/wnet/heritage. Note the timeline offered at www.pbs.org/wnet/heritage/timeline3.html
2. From Judea to Palestina, Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina, Second Temple and After: Apocalypse/Fear/Destruction
Texts and Traditions, 429-434 (overview), 434-452 and 457-469 (war and siege-- scan to get the sense of doom), 453--457 (Gittin 56a-b, rabbinic account of the siege), 469-472 (aftermath).
Handout: 2 Baruch (= Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch), chapters 1-12; 4 Ezra, chapters 1-3.; 3rd vision (6.35-9.25) and 4th vision (9.26-10.59); mPeah 1.1; mHallah 1.1, Sanders, Epilogue, 491-494; Josephus, excerpts from Jewish War, Book 7, chapter 5; 6.6; 10 and 11 (the Roman triumph, the poll tax for Jews, and the end of the Onias Temple. Full text at www.ccel.org/j/josephus/works/war-7.htm); Josephus, Against Apion, I, chapter 15 to end, at www.ccel.org/j/josephus/works/apion-2.htm.
Marty Jaffee, Early Judaism, 78-82.
“The Great Revolt,” in Ben Sasson, A History of the Jewish People, 296-303.
3. Chronology: Historical Overview of Jews under Roman and Byzantine Control, the Sassanian Empire, to the Muslim Conquest.
Seth Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, “Rabbis and Patriarchs on the Margins,” 104-128.
Robert Seltzer, Chapter 6, “The Efflorescence of Rabbinic Judaism, Second to Seventh Centuries” from Jewish People, Jewish Thought, 243-260, 310-314. See timelines, pages 166-170, 316-319.
Texts and Traditions, 487-495, 561-565, 568-570 (Roman and Jewish sources on the 2d century revolts), 597-605 (Babylonian Jews and Tannaim)
Section B: Putting the Rabbis Back into Time and Space: the New Religious Movement of the Tannaim
In general parlance it is assumed that after the Revolts, the Jews and the rabbis leave the narrative of political time and space. In this reading, based on contemporary forms of nationalism (i.e., what makes a people present in the world, what gives them coordinates of time and place, is their control of nation and territory and without this, they are not present, not actual, not located in time and space). This reading of the rabbis and ancient Jews as unconnected to a material world means that we miss much texture and nuance when we read their texts. In this class we want to put them back into time and space, Jews and Rabbis both, and see how it makes a difference, to see what new, and hopefully more helpful stories might emerge. In this section, we put the early Rabbis in general, and the Tannaim in particular, back into the Roman Empire and the flourishing of law as a category in the second century. We also put the Rabbis back into their households, the state of marriage, and their arguments against women and femininity.
4. Who’s in Charge and Who’s Doing What? The Tannaim and the Nasi/Patriarchate: Political Power/Magical Desires.
Texts and Traditions 475-479 (rabbinic authority), 497-559 (Mishnah: the New Scripture), 571-574 (patriarchate, Antoninus), 715-719 (kashrut) and 735-748 (Maaseh Markavah, and Magic Bowls, and Rabbinic responses to them. (Recommended site for more on early mysticism, www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Rels463/TalmudicMysticism.html. For more context on magic traditions, see www.lib.umich.edu/pap/magic/intro.html)
Jaffee, Early Judaism, 176-200.
5. Mishnah and its Development
For a minimum of one hour, read through the Mishnah in English. Try to get a sense of the whole.
In class, discussion of Mishnah, and comparison of mishnah/tosefta/yerushalmi/bavli Taanit.
Iggeret Rav Sherira Gaon (handout)
6. History, Gender, and Ordinary Jews
Spinning Fantasies: Introduction, chapters 1, 2, 3. (See handout with Ketubot 8.1-2; Qiddushin 4.12-14/tQiddushin 5, mQiddushin 1.7).
Texts and Traditions, 682-698, 732-734.
Women’s status in Roman law, including twelve tables. www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/wlgr/wlgr-romanlegal.shtml
7. Home and Family Life.
Spinning Fantasies, chapters 4, 5, 6, epilogue.
Texts and Traditions, 719-732
Jaffee, Early Judaism, 200-212
Section C: The development of the synagogue, the Amoraim, the emergence of the Sassanian Talmudic academies, and adjacent religious traditions (250 ce to 600 ce)
Another consequence of the imagined removal of ancient rabbis and Jews from real time and place is that we tend to study them outside the development of other and adjacent religious and religio-legal traditions. In this extended section, we reverse this trend and examine the development of Judaism in the 2nd-7th centuries amid other developing and ongoing traditions, such as Christianity, Gnosticism, the decline of pagan traditions, the revival of Persian Zoroastrianism in the Parthian and Sassanian Empire, the Hindu and Buddhist traditions circulating at the eastern edge of the Parthian/Sassanian Empire, and the emergence of Islam in the seventh century as it adopts Jewish traditions to combat encroaching Byzantine settlement in Arabia. In this section, we will use the emerging synagogue as a lens to think through Jew’s engagements with other traditions, and also read several of Shaye Cohen’s essays on how the Rabbis created specific kinds of legal boundaries to quantify and acknowledge their notions of true Jewishness.
8. A History of the Early Church, the emerging Byzantine Empire, and how it affects the Jews.
Texts and Traditions: 414-427 (Jewish-Christian separation, Justin Martyr, Aphrahat, Epiphanius) 574-595 (Byzantine sources and restrictions), 605-617 (Amoraim, Exilarchate, Savoraim), 619-632 (Yerushalmi), 650-656 (Targum); 656-670 (liturgy)
Schwartz, Chapters 4 and 5 (129-176)
Recommended websites to look at: Edict of Milan: www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/edict-milan.html, and Ptolemy and his solar system mapped in Christian terms campus.northpark.edu/history/Classes/Sources/Ptolemaic.html
9. The Synagogue (Samaritans, Gnostics, Manicheans).
Schwartz, chapter 6 “Christianization” (179-202); skim 7 “Landscape Transformed” (203-214); read chapter 8 “Origins and Diffusion of the Synagogue, (215-239). chapter 9 “Judaization” (240-274), chapter 10 (The Synagogue and the Ideology of Community” (275-289), and Conclusion (291-292).
Texts and Traditions: 472-474 (synagogue inscriptions), 633-650 (Babylonian Talmud)
10. Setting Boundaries
Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties. Chapter 8 “The Prohibition of Intermarriage,” and Chapter 9 “The Matrilineal Principle.” Recommended (book on reserve): Chapter 10, “Israelite Mothers/Israelite Fathers,” and Epilogue, “Jews, Judaism and Jewishness: Us and Them.”
Section D: Talmudic Judaism Triumphant?
11. Different Theories about Rabbinic Judaism, Islam and the Muslim/Arabian conquests.
Texts and Traditions, 595-596 (Persian conquest of Jerusalem in 614); 610-617 (tension between Palestine and Babylon), 671-682 (theology) and 749-761 (Hegemony of the Babylonian Talmud).
Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties. Chapter 8 “The Prohibition of Intermarriage,” chapter 9 “The Matrilineal Principle.”
12. Final Discussion:
Milton Steinberg, As a Driven Leaf (Behrman House, 1996). Steinberg was enthralled by Mordechai Kaplan, and wrote this novel as his proto-Reconstructionist vision of the early rabbis. It has since become one of the few popular/literary introductions to the Rabbinic period. What images and stories, what sensibilities of the rabbis does his novel offer? What are the images of this period presented by popular culture, the images most likely to be familiar to contemporary Jews?
13. Review: From the Post-Exile, to the Second Exile, to the Eve of the Medieval Period.
Kaplan, Judaism as a Civilization, 362-381.
Review Jaffee, Cohen, and Schwartz.
Jews and Sports
Professor Rebecca T. Alpert
While Jews are often seen as “the people of the book” they are also a “people of the body.” This course will encourage students to think in new ways about the Jewish connection to sports, locating sports in the history and sociology of American Jewish life. We’ll start with a look at the history of Jews in relationship to athletics and body image. Then we’ll focus on the American Jewish experience, examining not only the major sports that Jews have been involved with (baseball, boxing, and basketball) but also how immigration, urbanization, gambling, assimilation, and anti-Semitism have influenced Jewish involvement in sports. We will examine questions about ethnicity and race, gender (both masculinity and women’s participation) and class. We will also examine international affairs, especially the 1936 Olympics, the role of sports in Israel, and Israel-America relations as experienced through U.S. participation in the Maccabiah games. We will close with a look at sports in the life of contemporary Jews as participants, writers and spectators.
Readings will include:
Jeffrey Gurock, Judaism's Encounter with American Sports
Peter Levine, Ellis Island to Ebbets Field: Sport and the American Jewish Experience
Steven Riess, ed., Sports and the American Jew
Eric Rolfe Greenberg, The Celebrant
Other recommended texts:
George Eien, "Jewish History and the Ideology of Modern Sport: Approaches and Interpretations," Journal of Sport History 25:3
Paul Taylor, Jews and the Olympic Games: The Clash Between Sports and Politics
Allen Bodner, When Boxing was a Jewish Sport
Douglas Century, Barney Ross
David Margolick, Beyond Glory: Joe Louis, Max Schmeling and a World on the Brink
Alan Pollock, Barnstorming to Heaven
Jack Kugelmass, ed. Jews, Sports and the Rites of Citizenship
Course Outline:
1. Introduction: Why Sports?
2. Sport in Jewish History and Tradition
Gurock, pp. 15-35
“Body Matters: Race, Gender and Perceptions of Physical Ability from Goethe to Weininger” by Patricia Vertinsky in Identity and Intolerance: Nationalism, Racism and Xenophobia in Germany and the United States, ed. Norbert Finzsch and Dietmar Schirmer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) 331-370
3. Sports and the American Jewish Experience
Immigration and leisure
Riess:
Chapter 5, “The Rise of Sport at a Jewish Settlement House” Gerald Gems (146-159)
Chapter 6, “‘Our Crowd’ at Play: The Elite Jewish Country Club in the 1920s, Peter Levine (160-185)
Gurock, 35-74, 91-120
4. Oral History: an introduction
Boxing
Riess, chapter 2, “Tough Jews: the Jewish American Boxing Experience” (60-104)
Levine, chapters 8-9
Film clips: “Body and Soul”
Oral History: picking your subject, writing the questions, conducting an interview
5. 1936 Olympics
Levine, chapter 11
www.ushmm.org/ search “Olympics”
Allen Guttmann, Heather Kestner, George Eisen, “Jewish Athletes and the Nazi Olympics,” in The Olympics at the Millenium: Power, Politics and the Games, ed. Kay Schaffer and Sidonie Smith (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000) 51-62
Moshe Gottlieb, “The American Controversy Over the Olympic Games,” American Jewish Historical Quarterly 61:3 (March 1972) 181-213
6. Basketball
Levine, chapters 2-4
Guest speaker: Rich Westcott, sportswriter, on “Eddie Gottlieb”
7. Women Athletes
Riess chapter 3, “Jewish American Women, Jewish Organizations, and Sports, 1880-1940, Linda Borish (105-131)
Linda Borish, “`The Cradle of American Champions, Women Champions … Swim Champions’: Charlotte Epstein, Gender and Jewish Identity, and the Physical Emancipation of Women in Aquatic Sports,” by The International Journal of the History of Sport, Vol. 21, 2 (March 2004): 197-235
Film: “Jewish Women in American Sport: Settlement Houses to the Olympics” (Borish, US, 2006)
8. Baseball
Levine, 87-132
9. Hank Greenberg
Riess chapter 7, “Hank Greenberg: The Jewish American Sports Hero” William Simons (185-207)
Levine, 132-143
Film: “The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg”
Oral history excerpt: www.ajcarchives.org/main.php?GroupingId=4310
Oral History: how to use oral history as a primary source
10. Sports and the American Jewish Imagination
Gamblers and Entrepreneurs
“Biznez is Biznez: The Arnold Rothstein Story” by Michael Alexander in Jazz Age Jews (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001) 48-64
Riess, chapter 8, “Lester Harrison and the Rochester Royals, 1945-1957” Donald Fisher (208-240)
Levine, 103-108
Guest Speaker: Michael Alexander, Associate Professor of History, Temple University
11. Literature
Eric Rolfe Greenberg, The Celebrant
Riess chapter 10, “Eric Rolfe Greenberg’s The Celebrant,” Eric Solomon, 256-286
12. Sports in Israel
Moshe Sasson and Barbara Schrodt, “The Maccabi Sport Movement and the Establishment of the First Maccabiah Games, 1932,” Canadian Journal of History of Sport 16 (1985) 67-90
Yair Galily, “Playing Hoops in Palestine: the Early Development of Basketball in the Land of Israel, 1935-56” International Journal of the History of Sport, 20:1 (March 2003) 143-151
Yoram Carmeli and Ronit Grossman, “‘It’s a Game between Jews and Arabs’: Soccer Journalism, Otherness and Abjection in the Israeli Context,” Culture, Sport, Society, 3:2 (Summer 2000) 23-43
13. Jewish Fans and Sports Today
Gurock, 154-191
Allen Salkin, “Where Have You Gone Sandy Koufax?” Heeb Magazine 5 (February 2004)
Jane Leavy, “King of the Jews” in Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy (New York: Harpercollins, 2003) 167-194
www.jewishsportsreview.com
jewishmajorleaguers.org/
14. Closing Session
Oral History: class presentations
Jewish and Muslim Women
In its three-hundred-year history as a Western concept, secularism is often defined as the opposite of religion. Religious women have alternately found western secularism to be a source of liberation (as it grants them greater civil rights) and a source of oppression (as it putatively shrinks the religious sphere). In creating feminisms through Jewish and Muslim experience, feminisms that are both secular and religious, these religious women have complicated the meanings of secularism. They have also challenged the notion that feminism is necessarily secular.
Required Texts:
Books:
Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity
Esther Fuchs, Israeli Women’s Studies: A Reader
Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject
Tamar El Or, Next Year I Will Know More: Literacy and Identity among Young Orthodox Women in Israel
Ann Pellegrini and Janet Jakobsen, “World Secularisms at the Millennium,” special issue, Social Text, 364(Fall 2000), to be acquired online through library database.
Reserved readings:
1. Sander Gilman, “Diaspora Judaism: A Model for Diaspora Islam in Europe,”
2. Jonathan Z. Smith, “Religion, Religions, Religious,” Critical Terms for Religious Studies, Mark C. Taylor, ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 269-284.
3. Joan Scott, "Universalism and the History of Feminism," Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 7.1(1995), 1-14.
4. Rosalind Delmar, “What is Feminism?” from Theorizing Feminism: Parallel Trends in the Humanities and Social Sciences, second ed., Anne Herrmann and Abigail Stewart, ed., (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001), 5-28.
5. Daniel Boyarin, “Gender,” Critical Terms for Religious Studies, 117-135.
6. Laurence Silberstein, “Mapping, Not Tracing: Opening Reflections,” in Mapping Jewish Identities, Laurence Silberstein, ed., (New York: NYU Press, 2000), 1-36.
7. Amos Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), “The Threshold of Modernity,” 220-256.
8. Susan Shapiro, “On Thinking Identity Otherwise,” Mapping Jewish Identities, 299-323.
9. “The Onset of Change,” Chazan, Robert and Marc Raphael, Modern Jewish History, A Source Reader, (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), 1-31.
10. David Biale, “Preface: Towards a Cultural History of the Jews,” Cultures of the Jews: A New History, (New York: Schocken, 2002), xvii-xxxiii.
11. Laura Levitt, “Letting Go of Liberalism: Feminism and the Emancipation of the Jews,” Postcolonialism, Feminism & Religious Discourse, Laura Donaldson and Kwok Pui-Lan ed., (New York, London: Routledge, 2002), 161-179.
12. Talal Asad, “Reflections on Laïcité & the Public Sphere,”
13. Harriet Freidenreich, Female, Jewish, & Educated: The Lives of Central European University Women, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), Introduction, and chapters one and two, xiii-xxii, 1-41.
14. Laura Levitt, “Feminist Spirituality,” Spirituality and the Secular Quest, Peter Can Ness ed., (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1996), 305-334.
15. Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz and Irena Klepfisz, ed., Tribe of Dina: A Jewish Women’s Anthology (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989), preface and introduction, 7-13.
16. Valentine M. Moghadam, “Islamic Feminism and Its Discontents: Towards a Resolution of the Debate,” Signs, 27.4( 2002), 1135-1171.
17. Regina Morantz-Sanchez, “Two Female Characters in Search of a Theory: Mapping Jewish Identity through Personal Narrative,” Mapping Jewish Identities, 159-173.
18. Miriam Cooke, “Multiple Critique: Islamic Feminist Rhetorical Strategies,” Postcolonialism, Feminism & Religious Discourse, 142-160
Syllabus: Course Outline:
I Part One: Defining the Terms
Week One
1. Introduction to the Course
Definitions from OED, to be handed-out in class.
Secular, Secularism, Secularization
Jew, Judaism
Feminism
2. European Context
Historical legacy and the contemporary stakes
Why Islam and Judaism, why now?
READ: Sander Gilman, “Diaspora Judaism: A Model for Diaspora Islam in Europe”
Week Two
1. Secularism what does it mean?
READ: Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, Introduction, Thinking about Secularism.
Jakobsen and Pellegrini, introduction, Social Text
2. “Secular”
READ: Asad, Formations of the Secular, Part One, chapters 1, 2, 3
Week Three
“Secularism”
READ: Asad, Formations of the Secular, Part Two, chapters 4, 5, 6
Jonathan Z. Smith, “Religion, Religions, Religious”
Week Four
1.What is Feminism?
READ: Joan Scott, French Feminism and Universalism, Differences
Delmar, “What is Feminism”
Daniel Boyarin, “Gender”
2. Jews and Women?
READ: Levitt, “Letting Go of Liberalism”
Chazen and Raphael, “The Onset of Change” documents on Jewish emancipation, Dohm, Napoleon Questions and Notable Responses
Week Five
1. Jews, Jewishness, Judaism: Identity
READ: Laurence Silberstein, Mapping Jewish Identities
Susan Shapiro, “On Thinking Identity Otherwise”
2. Culture/Modernity/Jewish
READ: David Biale, preface, Cultures of the Jews
Amos Funkenstein, “The Threshold of Modernity”
II. Part Two: The Middle East: Egypt and Israel, comparative perspectives, Colonial Legacies
Week Six
Egypt
READ: Asad, Formations of the Secular, chapter 7
“Reconfigurations of Law and Ethics in Colonial Egypt”
Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, chapter 1
Week Seven
Israel
READ: Fuchs, Israeli Women’s Studies, introduction
Part One: Myth and History
Week Eight
Law and Religion: Israel
READ: Fuchs, Part Two “Law and Religion”
Part Three “Society and Politics”
Week Nine
Law and Religion: Egypt
READ: Mahmood, chapters 2-5
Week Ten
Orthodox Jewish women: Israel
READ: Tamar El Or, Next Year I Will Know More, introductory materials, section one, “The Research Site and Method” and chapter 3, “Biographies of Torah Learners”
Week Eleven
Orthodox Jewish women and issues of agency
READ: El Or, section three, “Dialogues on Torah Study and the Construction of Identity” and section four, “Anthropology and Literacy”
III. Part Three: Religion, Secularism, and Feminism?
Week Twelve
Jews and Muslims in Europe and the US, women and education
READ: Robert Baird, “Late Secularism,” in Pellegrini and Jakobsen
Talal Asad, “Reflections on Laïcité & the Public Sphere,”
Harriet Freidenreich, Female, Jewish, & Educated
Reread: Sander Gilman, “Diaspora Judaism: A Model for Diaspora Islam in Europe”
Week Thirteen
Contemporary Jewish and Muslim Feminisms
READ: Levitt, “Feminist Spirituality”
Kaye/Kantrowitz and Klepfisz, Preface and Introduction, Tribe of Dina
Afsaneh Najmabadi, “(Un)Veiling Feminism,” in Jakobsen and Pellegrini
Valentine M. Moghadam, “Islamic Feminism and Its Discontents: Towards a Resolution of the Debate”
Regina Morantz;Sanchez, “Two Female Characters in Search of a Theory”
Miriam Cooke, “Multiple Critique: Islamic Feminist Rhetorical Strategies”
Week Fourteen
Is feminism secular?
reREAD: Saba Mahmood, chapter one
Tamar El Or, “Epilogue”
|