Y Whitney Humanities Center program for the study Modern Antisemitism: An Introduction of antisemitism Yale University Note: This syllabus provides a framework for instructors teaching introductory courses PO Box 208298 New Haven CT 06520-8298 on modern antisemitism. The course offers an overview of debates on the history and t 203 432-0673 theory of modern antisemitism through readings in relevant primary and secondary f 203 432-1087 material. The syllabus may be used and modified for educational purposes. ypsa.yale.edu courier Course Description: 53 Wall Street New Haven CT 06511 What is antisemitism? Why has animosity toward Jews persisted in the modern West even after the inclusion of Jews in the nation-state? This course will offer students an historical and theoretical overview of modern antisemitism. Beginning with a discussion of Jewish emancipation in eighteenth-century Europe, the class will explore a series of prominent antisemitic incidents over the course of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. At the center of the course are four exemplary trials, in which antisemitism has featured as a major question and theme. In following this history, students will have a chance to read and debate some of the theoretical perspectives that scholars have used to understand the phenomenon of antisemitism in its varied geographical and temporal manifestations. Learning Objectives: • Familiarization with the history of modern antisemitism in Europe and the United States • Introduction to major terms, debates, and theoretical frameworks in the study of antisemitism • Close reading, interpretation, and written and oral analysis • Awareness of the ways that antisemitism intersects with important questions in contemporary global politics Required Texts: • Steven Beller, Antisemitism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2015). • Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World (Oxford University Press, 3rd Edition, 2010). [JMW] Course Readings and Schedule: Week I: What is Antisemitism? Tuesday: --Steven Beller, Antisemitism: A Very Short Introduction, chs. 1-4 Thursday: --Beller, Antisemitism, chs. 5-7 Week II: The Medieval and the Modern Tuesday: --Jacob Katz, From Prejudice to Destruction: Anti-Semitism, 1700-1933 (1980), chap. 26 (pp. 318-328) Thursday: --Gavin Langmuir, Toward a Definition of Antisemitism (1990), Introduction (pp. 1-17) Week III: Enlightenment and Emancipation (Germany) Tuesday: --Jacob Katz, Out of the Ghetto: The Social Background of Jewish Emancipation, 1770-1870 (1973), chap. 1 (pp. 1-8) and chap. 5 (pp. 57-79) --David Sorkin, Jewish Emancipation: A History Across Five Centuries (2019), Introduction (pp. 1-16) and chapter 3 (pp. 42-60) Thursday: --Christian Wilhelm von Dohm, “Concerning the Amelioration of the Civil Status of the Jews” (1781), in JMW --Moses Mendelssohm, “Response to Dohm” (1782), in JMW --Joseph II, “Edict of Tolerance” (1782), in JMW Week IV: Enlightenment and Emancipation (France) Tuesday: --Katz, Out of the Ghetto, ch. 10 (pp. 161-175) --David Sorkin, Jewish Emancipation, chap. 5 (pp. 72-79) and chap. 7 (pp. 91-101) Thursday: --“Declaration of the Rights of Man of the Citizen” (1789), in JMW --“The Emancipation of the Jews of France” (1791), in JMW --Napoleon Bonaparte, “Imperial Decree Calling for an Assembly of Jewish Notables” (1806), in JMW --Count Molé, “Napoleon’s Instructions to the Assembly of Jewish Notables” (1806), in JMW Week V: Enlightenment and Emancipation (Russia) Tuesday: --Michael Stanislawski, “Russian Jewry, the Russian State, and the Dynamics of Jewish Emancipation,” in Paths of Emancipation: Jews, States, and Citizenship (1995), pp. 262-283 --John D. Klier, “The Pogrom Paradigm in Russian History,” in Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History (1992), pp. 13-38 Thursday: --Alexander I, “Statutes Concerning the Organization of Jews (December 9, 1804),” in JMW, pp. 350-351 --Nicholas I, “Delineation of the Pale of Settlement (April 1835),” in JMW, pp. 354- 355 --Leo Pinsker, Auto-Emancipation!: An Admonition to His Brethren by a Russian Jew (1882), in Auto-Emancipation, trans. D.S. Blondheim (The Maccabaean Publishing Company, 1906), pp. 1-16 Week VI: The Dreyfus Affair (Trial 1) Tuesday: --Ruth Harris, Dreyfus: Politics, Emotion, and the Scandal of the Century (2010), Introduction, pp. 1-14 --Maurice Samuels, The Right to Difference: French Universalism and the Jews (2016), chap. 4 (pp. 95-116) Thursday: --Émile Zola, “Letter to M. Félix Faure, President of the Republic (‘J’accuse’),” L’Aurore (13 January 1898), in The Dreyfus Affair: “J’accuse” and Other Writings (1996), pp. 43-52 Week VII: The Beilis Trial (Trial 2) Tuesday: --Steve Zipperstein, “Fateless: The Beilis Trial a Century Later,” in The Jewish Review of Books (winter 2015) --Robert Weinberg, “Connecting the Dots: Jewish Mysticism, Ritual Murder, and the Trial of Mendel Beilis,” in Ritual Murder in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Beyond: New Histories of an Old Accusation (2017), pp. 172-184 Thursday: --“Papal Edict Condemns Ritual Murder Accusation (Document #1),” in Blood Libel in Late Imperial Russia: The Ritual Murder Trial of Mendel Beilis (2014), pp. 75-76 --“Ritual Murder Described in Detail (Document #11),” in Blood Libel, pp. 87-88 --“The Government Response (Document #15),” in Blood Libel, pp. 91-92 2 --“Beilis Describes His Life in Prison (Document #24),” in Blood Libel, pp. 102-104 --“Police Official Stresses the Lack of Credible Evidence against Beilis (Document #26),” in Blood Libel, pp. 106-108 --“International Uproar against the Blood Libel and Prosecution of Beilis (Document #28),” in Blood Libel, pp. 109-110 Week VIII: The Frank Case (Trial 3) Tuesday: --Tony Michels, “Is America ‘Different’?: A Critique of American Jewish Exceptionalism,” in American Jewish History 96, no. 3, pp. 201-224 --Jeffrey Melnick, “‘The Night Witch Did It’: Villainy and Narrative in the Leo Frank Case,” in American Literary History 12, nos. 1-2, pp. 113-129 Thursday: Eugene Levy, “‘Is the Jew a White Man?’: Press Reaction to the Leo Frank Case, 1913-1915,” in Phylon 35, no. 2 (1974), pp. 212-222 --Burton Rascoe, “Will the State of Georgia Hang an Innocent Man?,” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 27, 1914 --“Article 3—No Title,” in Chicago Defender, January 2, 1915 --“Frank Lynched After 100-Mile Ride,” New York Times, August 18, 1915 --W. Allison Sweeney, “The South Has Always Been Backward,” Chicago Defender, August 21, 1915 --Jonah Wise, in The American Israelite, November 20, 1913 --The Jewish Advocate, December 12, 1913 --The American Israelite, April 30, 1914 Week IX: Protocols of the Elders of Zion Tuesday: --Norman Cohn, Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World-Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1967), chs. 1-3 --“Michael Hagemeister, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: Between History and Fiction,” in New German Critique 103 (2008), pp. 83-95 Thursday: --“The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” in Antisemitism in the Modern World: An Anthology of Texts (1991), ch. 15 Week X: Nazism Tuesday: --Saul Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews: Vol. 1, The Years of Persecution, 1933- 1939 (1997), chap. 3 (pp. 73-112) -- Timothy Snyder, Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning (2015), Prologue (pp. xiii-xv), Introduction (pp. 1-10), and chap. 1 (11-28) Thursday: --Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (1925), vol. 1, chap. 2 (pp. 19-65) Week XI: Holocaust Denial (Trial 4) Tuesday: --Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (1993), Preface to the Paperback Edition (pp. xi-xviii) and chap.1 (pp. 1-30) Wednesday: --Denial (dir., Mick Jackson, 2016) Week XII: Zionism Tuesday: --Pierre-André Taguieff, Rising from the Muck: The New Anti-Semitism in Europe (2004), chap. 1 (pp. 9-39) 3 Thursday: Shulamit Volkov, “Readjusting Cultural Codes: Reflections on Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism,” in The Journal of Israeli History 25, no. 1 (2006), pp. 51-62 Week XIII: Anti-Zionism Tuesday: --Edward Said, “Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Victims,” in Social Text 1 (1979), pp. 7-58 Thursday: --Judith Butler, “Forward,” in On Antisemitism: Solidarity and the Struggle for Justice (2017) --Omar Barghouti, “Two Degrees of Separation: Israel, its Palestinian Victims, and the Fraudulent Use of Antisemitism,” in On Antisemitism --Alexander Abassi, “Let the Semites End the World!: On Decolonial Resistance, Solidarity, and Pluriversal Struggle,” in On Antisemitism “Appendix I: JVP Statements on Antisemitism,” in On Antisemitism Week XIV: Recent Trends Tuesday: --Jonathan Weisman, (((Semitism))): Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump (2018), Introduction (pp. 1-32) Thursday: --Heidi Beirich and Mark Potok, “Schism Over Anti-Semites Divides Key White Nationalist Group, American Renaissance,” SPLC Intelligence Report (2006) --Julie Turkewitz and Kevin Roose, “Who is Robert Bowers, the Suspect in the Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting?” The New York Times, 27 October 2018 --Julie Hirschfeld Davis, “Trump Accuses Jewish Democrats of ‘Great Disloyalty,’” The New York Times, 20 August 2019 4 .