TOPICS COURSE - 1.5 credits
This mini-course will examine the political relationship of the Jewish community to the gentile authorities among whom they lived (and live), to the internal authority structures within the Jewish community, and to the modern Jewish state. We will examine how Jews rebelled against and accommodated to structures of power in varying historical contexts. Topics to be discussed include: The Birth of Modern Jewish Politics; The Russian State and the Jews (conscription, revolution, and liberalism); Communism and Socialism in the Interwar Years; Jewish Liberalism and its Discontents; Zionist Empowerment; and the challenge of the Holocaust. Primary and secondary sources, as well as fiction, poetry and films, will be used.
No prerequisites.
