Prof. Elissa Bemporad The Graduate Center, CUNY E-mail: [email protected] Class: Tuesday, 4:15-6:15, Room 5212 Office hours: by appointment only
HIST 79200: Jews and the Left
Spring 2020
Course Description: This course will explore the historical involvement of Jewish men and women in the political left from the French Revolution to the contemporary world, in Europe, America and Palestine/Israel. By discussing the political and ideological factors that attracted Jews to leftist political movements over time and in different geopolitical contexts, the course will study the ambivalent relationship between universalism and particularism that lied at the heart of these movements. Through a diverse selection of readings, which include memoirs, letters, fiction, press articles, and monographs, students will also be asked to disentangle facts from myth, as they ponder the reality and the limits of the Jewish alliance with the Left. This course will also explore the ways in which, at different times and in different places, the association between Jews and the Left have become a common thread in antisemitic thinking
Learning Goals: Students should come away from this course with improved analytical skills and an enhanced ability to critically assess historical documents through writing and discussion. Students will gain the ability to understand the nature of historical interpretation – that all historical texts are shaped by context, method, and bias; that texts may be internally contradictory and irreducible to a single interpretation; and that the historian’s craft includes asking: “what isn’t here?”, “what is/was the author’s agenda(s)?”, and “how does my point of view inform my reading?” Students will also learn to understand and do historiography by comparing and contrasting different interpretations of the events, and to situate those interpretations in their own historical time period and intellectual context. Finally, by focusing on the history of one ethnic-religious group (the Jews), students are encouraged to think critically about global phenomena, such as identity, migration, cultural accommodation, modernization, and racism.
Required Texts for this course: 1) Primary sources are available through Blackboard and are marked B on the syllabus. All primary sources should be printed out and brought to class. 1) Ezra Mendelshon, ed. Essential Papers on Jews and the Left; 2) Marci Shore, Caviar and Ashes: A Warsaw Generation’s Life and Death in Marxism; 3) Paul Hanebrink, A Specter Haunting Europe: The Myth of Judeo-Bolshevism. 4) Joshua Rubenstein, Leon Trotsky: A Revolutionary’s Life; 5) Vivian Gornick, Emma Goldman: Revolution as a Way of Life; 6) Shlomo Avineri, Karl Marx: Philosophy and Revolution; 7) Elissa Bemporad, Legacy of Blood: Jews, Pogroms and Ritual Murder in the Lands of the Soviets. The books are available for purchase through www.abebooks.com and www.amazon.com, and are on reserve at GC Library.
Course Requirements: Students are required to prepare the course readings and participate actively and consistently in class (this means attendance is essential because your participation is part of your grade). Please note that some weeks have more readings than others so try to pace yourself accordingly. Students should bring the assigned readings to class. Students are also required to write a 20-page research paper (25 at the most), which will be due one week after the end of classes. On the last day of classes, each student will give a short presentation of the research topic and, based on pre-circulated drafts of the papers, students will provide feedback and comments to each presenter. The research paper’s topic must be discussed in advance and chosen in consultation with the instructor, and must have the instructor’s approval. Grading: Students must complete all assignments in order to receive a grade. The overall grade for this course will be composed as follows: Class participation: 35% Class presentation: 10% Research paper: 55% Code of Academic Integrity: GC regards acts of academic dishonesty (e.g. plagiarism, cheating on examination, obtaining unfair advantage, and falsification of records and official documents) as serious offense against the values of intellectual honesty. GC is committed to enforcing the CUNY Policy on Academic Integrity and will pursue cases of academic dishonesty according to the GC Academic Integrity Procedure. I will NOT tolerate any kind of plagiarism. Any paper that closely resembles material found on the internet or another student’s essay will be considered plagiarism and receive an F. Plagiarism will be reported to the Dean of Students and may result in an F for the course. *The use of smart phones and text messaging and computers will not be tolerated in the classroom.
January 28: ● Introduction: Is there a Jewish Tradition of Radicalism?
Readings: Isaac Deutscher, “The Non-Jewish Jew”; Yuri Slezkine, The Jewish Century (excerpts) (B).
February 4: ● The French Revolution, Napoleon, and the Revolutions of 1848
Readings: Abbe Gregoire, “An Essay on the Physical, Moral and Political Reformation of the Jews,” “Debate on Jewish Emancipation in French National assembly,” and “Debate in Germany” in Jew in the Modern World; Frances Malino, A Jew in the French Revolution (excerpts); Salo Baron, “The Impact of the Revolution of 1848 on Jewish Emancipation” JSS (B)
February 11: ● Marx and Hess Face the Jewish Question
Readings: Marx, On the Jewish Question (B) Isaiah Berlin, “Moses Hess” In Essential Papers on Jews and the Left Shlomo Avineri, Karl Marx: Philosophy and Revolution
February 18: ● The Bund and the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party
Readings: Bundist Pamphlets; Decisions of the Nationalities Question; Lenin and Stalin on the Jewish Question in Jew in the Modern World (B). Moshe Mishkinsky, “Regional Factors in the Formation of the Jewish Labor Movement in Czarist Russia” Essential Papers on Jews and the Left Joshua Rubenstein, Leon Trotsky: A Revolutionary’s Life
February 25: ● Jewish Nationalism and Socialism: Syntheses and Clashes
Readings: Chaim Zhitlowsky, from Architects of Yiddishism; Wistrich, Radical Jews from Marx to Trotsky, chapter on Rosa Luxemburg and Leon Trotsky; Nachman Syrkin, “The Socialist Jewish State” (From The Zionist Idea) (B). Matityahu Mintz, “Ber Borokhov” in Essential Papers on Jews and the Left
March 3: ● The Second Aliyah and the Kibbutz movement
Readings: Shulamit Reinharz and Michal Palgi, One Hundred Years of Kibbutz Life Anita Shapira, Berl: The Biography of a Socialist Zionist (B). Anita Shapira, “Socialist Zionism and Nation Building” in Jacobs, Jews and Leftist Politics
March 10: ● Shades of Red: The Yiddish Left-Wing Press and the Labor Movement in America
Readings: Melech Epstein, Jewish Labor in the USA (selections); Tony Michels (ed.), Jewish Radicals: A Documentary History (B). Arthur Liebman, “The Ties that Bind: Jewish Support for the Left in the United States,” Essential Papers on Jews and the Left.
March 17: NO CLASS
A bibliography and one-page synopsis of the research paper is DUE!
March 24: ● The Russian Revolution, Bolshevism, and the Rise of Soviet Jewry
Readings: Zvi Gitelman, Century of Ambivalence (selections); Slezkine, The Jewish Century (chapter 3); Isaac Babel, Karl Yankel (B). Bemporad, Legacy of Blood (Chapters 1-4).
March 31: ● Jewish Communism in America and Palestine
Readings: Melech Epstein , Jewish Labor in the USA (selections) Harvey Klier, “Jews and American Communism” in Jews and Leftist Politics (B) Anita Shapira, “Black Night – White Snow: Atitude of the Palestinian Labor Movement to the Russian Revolution, 1917-1929” in Essential Paper on Jews and the Left David Maraniss, A Good American Family: The Red Scare and My Father
April 7: CUNY follows a Wednesday schedule
April 8-16: Spring recess
April 21: ● Radical Jewish Women: Emma Goldman, Mania Shochat, Ester Frumkin
Readings: Naomi Shepherd, A Price Below Rubies: Jewish Women and Rebels and Radicals; Emma Goldman, “Anarchism: What It Really Stands for” (B). Vivian Gornick, Emma Goldman: Revolution as a Way of Life.
April 28: ● Soviet Antisemitism, Judeo-Bolshevism, the New Anti-Zionism
Readings: Pinkus, The Jews of the Soviet Union : A Documentary History (selections) (B). Frankel, “The Soviet Regime and Anti-Zionism: An Analysis”, Essential Papers on Jews and the Left; Paul Hanebrink, A Specter Haunting Europe; Bemporad, Legacy of Blood (Chapter 5-6).
May 5: ● American Jewish Liberalism: From FDR to LBJ ● The Decline of the Jewish Left in America and Israel (1967-1995)
Readings: Marc Dollinger, Quest for Inclusion: Jews and Liberalism in Modern America; Stuart Svonkin, Jews Against Prejudice; J.J. Goldberg, Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment (esp. pp. 133-162, 197- 304); Amnon Rubenstein, The Zionist Dream Revisited: From Herzl to Gush Emunim and Back, (esp. pp. 76-167) (B).
May 12: ● Student presentations, and feedback based on pre-circulated paper drafts!