Fall,
2006
HIS
3931 Section 5301
Flint
0111
Tuesdays
1:55-2:45 and Thursdays 1:55-3:50
Prof. Mitchell Hart
Office: Keene-Flint 18
Office Hours: Monday, 1-4 and by appointment
Email: hartm@history.ufl.edu
Office
phone: 392-0271, extension 232
How
did Jews in Europe, North America, Africa and the Middle East respond to the revolutionary
transformations in politics, culture, and social relations that began in Europe
in the seventeenth century? How
did the emergence of the modern nation-state, notions of individual rights and
duties, secularism, liberalism, socialism and other political ideologies impact
on the condition of the Jews? What
were the effects of industrialization, capitalism, and urbanization? This
course introduces students to the major themes and issues in modern Jewish
history: the idea of "Jewish modernity"; the Jewish enlightenment (Haskalah); emancipation and assimilation in their
various national contexts; the rise of Reform Judaism and neo-Orthodoxy;
anti-Semitism and the Jewish response; Jewish life in the Russian Empire, the
conditions there that produced the mass migrations of Jews westward, and the
significance of this migration in Central and Western Europe; Jewish migration
to the Ottoman Empire, to North Africa and the Middle East; to Jewish
nationalism (Zionism) and the Jewish involvement with Socialism and Communism;
Nazism, the Holocaust, and the enormous transformations in Jewish life produced
by this catastrophe. The course will conclude with a discussion of the two
major centers of Jewish life in the last half of the twentieth century: the State of Israel and America.
The Jew in the Modern World: A
Documentary History,
edited by Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, Second Edition, 1995
Culture
of the Jews (volume 3),
edited by David Biale
Both
of these books are on sale at Goerings Bookstore, and should be purchased.
Note
that I also reserve the right to give you handouts of short readings that will
supplement the reading material you are asked to purchase. You should regard these supplemental
readings as required, not optional; they constitute part of the overall
material assigned for the course.
Course
Requirements: Attendance
is required. More than three
unexcused absences and your final grade will be affected. There will be three assignments in this
course: one in-class midterm, an in-class final, and a take-home essay. The take-home essay will each be 8-10
pages in length. NO LATE ASSIGNMENTS WILL BE ACCEPTED.
The
midterm will be worth approximately 20% of the final grade; the final exam will
be worth 40% of the final grade; the take-home essay will be worth
approximately 40% of the final grade.
Class
sessions will be structured around the reading and in-class discussion of the
primary documents drawn from The Jew in the Modern World.
You will be expected to come to each class having read the assigned
material for that week and prepared to contribute to the discussion.
The
take home essay will be
given out in the eighth week of class, on October 10, and will be due November 14.
There will be no late papers accepted and there are absolutely no
exceptions to this rule.
While
I do not require that you hand in drafts, I will be more than happy to read any
draft you wish to give me. I will then correct it, make suggestions, and you can
improve your final version through this process. I will read up to two drafts
that you may then revise. If you
wish to do this, you must hand me a first draft no later than November 1. This will give me time to read it, make
comments, and give it back to you in time for you to re-work it.
There
are no prerequisites for this class.
You are not expected to be familiar with any particular language,
religious tradition, or ethnic background to take this course and excel. However, as with any material that is
unfamiliar, there may be terms or ideas that crop up in the lectures or
readings that require clarification; for instance, terms such as Talmud, kashrut or kosher, etc. You may, of course, email or speak to
me and I will do my best to answer whatever questions you have about Judaism or
Jewish history. There are also
very helpful resources to which you can turn for quick answers to most
questions of this sort. Here are a
few: The Encyclopedia Judaica
is a multi-volume work that will have definitions of pretty much anything that
comes up in a course such as this.
There is an online source called the Jewish Virtual Library.
If
you donıt know the meaning or significance of a term or idea that appears in
your reading or in lecture, it is your responsibility to find out about it.
PLEASE
NOTE: You are expected by the University of
Florida to adhere to its guidelines regarding academic honesty and
integrity. If you are unfamiliar
with the definition of plagiarism or other serious academic infractions you can
learn about them in the Studentıs Handbook or on the following webpage: http://regulations.ufl.edu/chapter4/4017.pdf
Week
1: Introduction
August
24: What is a "modern
Jew"? The Beginnings of "modernity"
Reading: Jew in the Modern World (JMW),
pp. 3-18, 54-57
David Biale, Preface and Introduction to Cultures
of the Jews, pages xv-7.
David Rechter, "The Jews: A European
Minority" (Xeroxed handout)
Reading: JMW,
pp. 62-63, 304-305
Richard Cohen, "Urban Visiblity and
Biblical Visions," in Cultures of the Jews, pages 9-40
August 31: The Jewish Enlightenment or Haskalah
Reading: JMW,
pp. 86-99
Week 3: Debates over Emancipation and Integration in Central and Western Europe
September 5: The
Debate in France
Reading: JMW, pp. 49-53, 112-120, 123-135
Richard Cohen, "Urban Visiblity and
Biblical Visions," in Cultures of the Jews, pages 40-66
September 7: The
Debate in Germany and the Habsburg Empire
Reading: JMW,
pp. 28-36, 42-49, 141-145
Week 4: Religious Responses to Modernity
September 12: Reform Judaism
Reading: JMW,
pp. 161-166, 177-185
September 14:
Reactions to Reform: Conservative,
neo-Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox Judaisms
Reading: JMW,
pp. 194-206
Reading: JMW, pp. 375-379, 381-386, 400-402
Reading: JMW, 387-400
Week 6: Modern Antisemitism and the
Jewish Response
September 26: Political Antisemitism
Reading: JMW,
pp. 309-311, 324-327
September 28: Racial Antisemitism
Reading, JMW, pp. 312-313, 316-321
Week 7: Antisemitism (continued);
October 3: Racial antisemitism
Reading: JMW,
pp. 327-336, 339-351
October
17 and October 19
Reading: JMW, pp. 254-55, 262-268, 278-279, 282-289
Reading: JMW, pp. 380, 408-417
David
Biale, "A Journey Between Worlds: East European Jewish Culture from the
Partitions of Poland to the Holocaust," in Cultures of the Jews, pp. 112-132
November
7 and November 9:
Reading:
JMW, pp. 529-538,
540-543, 546-549
Ariel
Hirschfeld, "Locus and Language: Hebrew Culture in Israel, 1890-1990,"
in Biale, Cultures of the Jews,
pp. 289-318
Ariel
Hirschfeld, "Locus and Language: Hebrew Culture in Israel, 1890-1990,"
in Biale, Cultures of the Jews,
pp. 318-336
Reading: JMW, pp. 454-455, 456-461
Stephen
J. Whitfield, "Declarations of Independence: American Jewish Culture in the Twentieth Century," in
Biale, Cultures of the Jews