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Tulane UniversityTulane will offer Building Jewish Identity: Secular Judaism in Historical Perspective as a core course and Social Sources of Jewish Identity in the Modern World as a secondary course in the spring of 2008.
Building Jewish Identity: Secular Judaism in Historical Perspective
The starting point for our investigation of a distinctively secular Jewish conception of the world will be the fact that roughly one half of the American Jewish population possesses a secular non-religious orientation (American Jewish Identity Survey, 2001). How did this non-religious orientation arise amongst what many people consider to be a religious community? We will explore how certain non- religious features, such as shared culture, language, customs, dress, and education played an integral role in the definition of Jews and Judaism from their inception, and the role played by these features in the constitution of variant secular forms of Judaism and secular Jewish orientations in the modern period.
Although ordered chronologically, the course aims to expose students to important elements within the Jewish cultural tradition that will eventually serve as building blocks for variant forms of secular Jewish identity and culture in the modern period. We will begin our study with an exploration of the Bible. Reading the text against the grain, we will come to see how religious practice served as only one element within a broader Israelite identity. During our study of the ancient world, we will focus on the clash of religion, ethnicity, and political sovereignty that led to the development of variant forms of Jewish culture and identity in the Land of Israel and the Diaspora. Particular attention will be given to Jewish art that challenges efforts to portray Jews in late antique Palestine as highly devout and cut-off from larger cultural trends seemingly at odds with Judaism. Through exploration of the impact of philosophy on the works of Saadya Gaon and Maimonides, we will see how Judaism began to be redefined as a moral system during the medieval period. The secular Hebrew poetry of Medieval Spain will then be studied to illustrate the interaction of medieval Jews and non-Jews that allowed for the transformation of sacred language and text into a secular leisure culture. We will then move to examine changes in Judaism that occurred with the development of converso identity following the mass conversions of Spanish and Portugese Jews to Christianity in the 14th and 15th centuries. These changes would set the stage for Spinoza’s pioneering expression of secular Jewish identity. Attention will then shift to the Enlightenment period and Ashkenazic Jewry’s first encounter with secularism. We will then move into a discussion of nineteenth-century Europe, concentrating on Jewish integration and its role in the development of new forms of secular Judaism. We will end the course with discussion of American Jewish identity and Israeli identity and the foundational role played by secularism in their construction. The progression of the course should permit the students to grasp the central idea that secular Jewish identity is an essential dimension of the Jewish experience, not something that arose recently.
Course Outline:
1. Introduction
Reading: Preface, xvii-xxxiii.
2. Discussion of Preface & Jbooks reading
Reading: “Introduction” pps. 3-8 & “Imagining the Birth of Ancient Israel,” 9-42.
Reading on jbooks website:
3. Discussion of “Imagining the Birth of Ancient Israel" & Jbooks reading
Reading: “Israel among the Nations,” pps. 44-76.
Reading on website:
4. Discussion of “Israel among the Nations” & Jbooks reading
Reading: “Hellenistic Judaism,” pps. 77-134.
Reading on website:
5. Discussion of “Hellenistic Judaism” & Jbooks reading
Reading: “Jewish Culture in Greco-Roman Palestine," pps. 135-180
Reading on website:
6. Discussion of “Jewish Culture in Greco-Roman Palestine” & Jbooks reading
Reading: “Confronting a Christian Empire,” pps. 181- 222.
Reading on website:
7. Discussion of “Confronting a Christian Empire” & Jbooks reading
Reading: “Babylonian Rabbinic Culture,” pps. 223-266.
Reading on website:
8. Discussion of “Babylonian Rabbinic Culture” & Jbooks reading
Reading: “Jewish Culture in the Formative Period of Islam,” pps. 267-304.
Reading on website:
9. Discussion of “Jewish Culture in the Formative Period of Islam” & Jbooks reading
10. Film: Fiddler on the Roof
11. Film: Fiddler on the Roof
12. Discussion of Fiddler on the Roof
Reading: “Introduction,” pps. 305-312 & “Merchants and Intellectuals,” pps. 313-388.
13. Discussion of “Merchants and Intellectuals” & Jbooks reading
Reading: “A Letter to a Wayward Teacher,” pps. 389- 448.
Reading on website:
14. Discussion of “A Letter to a Wayward Teacher” & Jbooks reading
Reading: “A Jewish-Christian Symbiosis,” pps. 449-518.
Reading on website:
15. Discussion of “A Jewish-Christian Symbiosis” & Jbooks reading
Reading: “Innovative Tradition,” pps. 519-572
Reading on website:
16. Discussion of “Innovative Tradition” & Jbooks reading
Reading: “Families and Their Fortunes,” pps. 573-638.
Reading on website:
17. Discussion of “Families and Their Fortunes” & Jbooks reading
Reading: “Bom Judesmo,” pps. 639-670.
Reading on website:
18. Discussion of “Bom Judesmo” & Jbooks reading
19. Film: Zelig
20. Film: Zelig
Reading: “Introduction,” pps. 725-730 & “Urban Visibility,” pps. 731-789.
21. Discussion of “Urban Visibility” & Jbooks reading
Reading: “A Journey Between Worlds,” pps. 799-862.
Reading on website:
22. Discussion of “A Journey Between Worlds” & Jbooks reading
Reading: “The Ottoman Diaspora,” pps. 863-886.
Reading on website:
23. Discussion of “The Ottoman Diaspora” & Jbooks reading
Reading: “Multicultural Visions,” pps. 887-932.
Reading on website:
24. Discussion of “Multicultural Visions” & Jbooks reading
Reading: “Challenges to Tradition,” pps. 933-976.
Reading on website:
25. Discussion of “Challenges to Tradition” & Jbooks reading
Reading: “Religious Interplay,” pps. 977-1030.
Reading on website:
26. Discussion of “Religious Interplay” & Jbooks reading
27. Film: Crossing Delancey
28. Film: Crossing Delancey
29. Discussion of Film: Crossing Delancey
Reading: “Locus and Language,” pps. 1011-1062.
Reading on website:
30. Discussion of “Locus and Language” & Jbooks reading
Reading: “The ‘Other’ Israel,” pps. 1063-1098.
Reading on website:
31. Discussion of “The ‘Other’ Israel” & Jbooks reading
Reading: “Declarations of Independence,” pps. 1099- 1146.
Reading on website:
32. Discussion of “Declarations of Independence” & Jbooks reading
Reading: “Conclusion,” pps. 1147-1150.
Reading on website:
33. Discussion of readings.
Readings:
• Biale, David ed., Cultures of the Jews: A New History
• Scheindlin, Raymond. A Short History of the Jewish People
• Website of the Center for Cultural Judaism (www.jbooks.com/secularculture)
Social Sources of Jewish Identity in the Modern World
A key concept in modern sociology, identity, according to Jeffrey Weeks, “…is about belonging, about what you have in common with some people and what differentiates you from others….it gives you a sense of personal location….it is also about your social relationships, your complex involvement with others.”
In traditional worlds, identity tended to be taken for granted, ascriptive, a birthright. Identities were communal, natural, a given. They made possible a form of social cohesion that Durkheim described as “mechanical solidarity,” which united people based on similarity and shared morality. But modern Western ways of life placed a new emphasis on the individual as the foundation of modern identity. According to Durkheim, this encouraged the growth of an “organic solidarity,” which united people through their specializations and differences.
This course draws upon contemporary Jewish identity as an intriguing case study from which to consider these critical issues of identity and social cohesion. Have modern ways of life made Jewish identity a choice rather than a fate? Does Durkheim’s claim that difference and inter-reliance binds modern people help explain when and where Jewish solidarity—as well as Jewish disunity--occurs? Do ethnicity, gender, or location influence the shape Jewish identity takes?
This course endeavors to answer these questions by examining contemporary Jewish identity from a sociological perspective. Drawing upon the lens of social identity theory, the course compares and contrasts the social sources of Jewish identity in Europe, Israel and the USA.
Required Texts:
Remaking Israeli Judaism: The Challenge of Shas, D. Lehmann and B. Siebzehner
Turning the Kaleidoscope: Perspectives on European Jewry, Edited by S. Lustig and I. Leveson
The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race and American Identity, E.L. Goldstein
Course Outline:
1. Introduction to the Course: Themes and Issues
Reading: "Varieties of Authenticity in Contemporary Jewish Identity," by Charme
2. Identity from a Sociological Perspective
Reading: "Identity Theory..."
3. European Jewish Identity
Reading: Lustig/Leveson, Turning the Kaleidoscope
4. Globalization and European Jewish Identity
Reading: Lustig/Leveson
5. Jewish Identity in Germany
Reading: :We don't want..", by Yurdakal el al
Lustig/Leveson
6. Israeli Jewish Identity: An Introduction
Reading: Lehmann, Siebzehner
7. New forms of Israeli Religious Jewish Identity: Chabad and T'shuva
Reading: Lehann, Siebzehner
8. New forms of Israeli Political Jewish Identity: Shas
Reading: Lehmann, Siebzehner
9. European and Israeli Jewish Identity in a sociological perspective
Reading: "The Jewish Diaspora.." by Safran
10. American Jewish Identity: Ethnicity and Whiteness
Reading: Goldstein
11. American Jewish Ethnicity: Symbolic or otherwise?
Reading: Goldstein
12. Gender and American Jewish Identity
Reading: "Gender and Jewish Identity," Hartman and Hartman
13. American Jewish Identity: Boundaries, Assimilation
Reading: "On the Sociological Significance," by Alba
14. Social Sources of Jewish Identity: Overview
Back to Sample Course Descriptions
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