Modern Jewish in Europe Syllabus Spring 2011

Ines Koeltzsch [email protected].de Classes: Monday, Wednesday, 12-1.20, Hrabal room/Richtr ův d ům Office hours: TBA, Professors Room/Richtr ův d ům

Course description : In his controversially discussed book “The Jewish Century”, Yuri Slezkine claimed that the “Modern Age” is the “Jewish Age”. Tracing the cultural, social and political transformations of the European Jewries since the end of the 18 th century, the course enquires into the specific Jewish experiences in modern times and their changing relationships to non-gentile society. The geographical focus lies on Central and East Central Europe. Students are expected to participate actively in the sessions. Knowledge of the material to be read and discussed in class will be tested in a short quiz at the beginning of a session. There will be a mid-term test and all students must prepare a presentation and write a review of a book focused on the topics covered by the class. A detailed description of the course requirements and grading policy will be given to students in the first session.

Grading policy Class participation/attendance: 40 % Paper or other assignment: 20 % Mid-term: 20 % Final: 20 %

Schedule of classes

Week 1 24/26 January Overview of course lecture: Jewish Life in the Early Modern Age (with a focus on Prague), part I headed by Robert Řehák Week 2 31 January/2 February Jewish Life in the Early Modern Age (with a focus on Prague), part II headed by Robert Řehák

Week 3 7/9 February – the Beginning of Jewish Modernity? - Shmuel Feiner: Towards a Historical Definition of Haskalah, in: idem./Sorkin, David: New Perspectives on the Haskalah. London 2001, 184-219.

Week 4 14/16 February Hasidism, Misnagdim, and Maskilim. Confrontations within the East European Jewries - Bartal: The of Eastern Europe 1772-1881. Philadelphia 2002, 47-57; 90-101. - Moshe Rosman: Hasidism as a Modern Phenomen – The Paradox of Modernization Without Secularization, in: Simon Dubnow Institute Yearbook, 6 (2007), 215-224.

Week 5 21/23 February Emancipation and Integration. Jews in the Habsburg Monarchy - Rozenblit, Marsha: The Jews of Austria-Hungary on the Eve of World War I, in: idem.: Reconstructing a National Identity. The Jews of Habsburg Austria during World War I. Oxford 2001, pp. 14-38 (+ 174- 183). - Bertha Pappenheim: The Jewish Woman, in: Paul Mendes- Flohr/Jehuda Reinharz (ed.): The Jew in the Modern World. New York 1995, pp. 287-289.

Week 6 28 February/2 March The Rise of Modern - Yehuda Bauer: In Search of a Definition of Antisemitism, in: Michael Brown (ed.): Approaches to Antisemitism. Context and Curriculum. New York/Jerusalem 1994, pp. 10-23. - Houston Stewart Chamberlain: The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, in: Paul Mendes-Flohr/Jehuda Reinharz (ed.): The Jew in the Modern World. New York 1995, pp. 356-359.

Week 7 7/9 March Jewish and . New Responses to the “Jewish Question”, part I - Michael Brenner: An International Nationalism. The Topography of Early Zionism, in: idem.: Zionism. A Brief History. 2 nd ed., Princeton 2006, pp. 23-64. - Theodor Herzl: A Solution of the Jewish Question/Ahad Haam: The First Zionist Congress, in: Paul Mendes-Flohr/Jehuda Reinharz (ed.): The Jew in the Modern World. New York 1995, 533-538; 541-543.

Week 8 14/16 March Midterm test

Workers Movement and . New Responses to the “Jewish Question”, part II - Gertrud Pickhan: Yiddishkayt and Class Consiousness. The Bund and its Minority Concept, in: East European Jewish Affairs, 39, no. 2 (2009), pp. 249-263. - Zvi Gitelman: A Century of Jewish Politics in Eastern Europe. The Legacy of the Bund and the Zionist Movement, in: idem. (ed.): The Emergence of Modern Jewish Politics in Eastern Europe. and Zionism in Eastern Europe. Pittsburgh 2002, pp. 3-19.

Week 9 Spring Break – no classes

Week 10 28/30 March Jewish Mass Migration from Eastern Europe - Tobias Brinkmann: From Green Borders to Paper Walls: Jewish Migrants from Eastern Europe in Germany before and after the Great War, in: History in Focus, 2006, Issue on Migration/Crossing Borders. http://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/Migration/articles/brinkmann.html - Gur Alroey: “And I Remained Alone in a Vast Land”: Women in the Jewish Migration from Eastern Europe, in: Jewish Social Studies, 12, no. 3 (2006), pp. 39-72.

Week 11 4/6 April Reconstructing Jewish Identities in Central Europe Between the World Wars: Czechoslovakia - Hillel J. Kieval: Negotiating Czechoslovakia. The Challenges of Jewish Citizenship in a Multiethnic Nation-State, in: Richard I. Cohen et al. (ed.): Insiders and Outsiders. Dilemmas of East European Jewry. Oxford/Portland 2010, pp. 103-119. - Kate řina Čapková: Czechs, Germans, Jews – Where is the Difference? The Complexity of National Identities of Bohemian Jews, 1918-1938, in: Bohemia, 46, no. 1 (2005), pp. 7-14.

Week 12 11/13 April Holocaust/Shoah - Yehuda Bauer: Rethinking . New Haven/London 2001, pp. 14-67. - Emanuel Ringelblum: Last Letter from , in: Paul Mendes- Flohr/Jehuda Reinharz (ed.): The Jew in the Modern World. New York 1995, pp. 676-679.

Week 13 18/20 April Jews and Non-Jews in Europe after the Shoah, part I: Poland - Katrin Steffen: Disputed Memory. Jewish Past, Polish Remembrance, in: Impulses for Europe. Tradition and Modernity in East European Jewry (= Osteuropa, 2008), pp. 199-217. - Jan T. Gross: Fear. Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz. New York 2006, pp. 245-261 (+ 293).

Week 14 25/27 April 25 April: Holiday, no classes Jews and Non-Jews in Europe after the Shoah, part I: Czechoslovakia

The Review (= final exam) is due by 2 May. Week 15 2/4 May Jewish Life in post-1989 Central Europe Film and Discussion

Week 16 Exam week, no classes