A course on trends in Jewish religious, cultural, and social life. The course will study innovative and conservative aspects of thought, ritual, and belief in relation to contemporary life and traditional Jewish values in at least one country other than the United States.

Studying cultures other than our own is an intriguing experience, because it allows us to look closely at the unfamiliar, but also to recognize ourselves in it and learn about our own culture and perception. A key factor in understanding a culture is its linguistic conventions, from language etiquette to attitudes towards linguistic variation and other languages. Language is part and parcel of our identities as individual human beings as well as members of different societies, communities, classes, political camps, age groups, gender groups, etc.; accordingly, language use is a central arena of social activity. This is the main reason why we attach great importance to the way that we and others speak and write, and foster complex sets of attitudes (language ideologies) towards specific linguistic customs and specific groups of speakers. Consider, for instance, English doing vs. doin’, going to vs. gonna, you vs. y’all. Israel is a rich and diverse multicultural aggregate which incorporates many conflicting attributes: traditional vs. modern, western vs. eastern, secular vs. religious, local vs. global, collectivist vs. individualistic, and more. In this course we will examine Israeli culture, nowadays and in recent decades, through its linguistic idiosyncrasies, and look at how social identities are established, negotiated, celebrated, and rejected through linguistic practices. We will look at a wide variety of cultural expressions, ranging from pronunciation patterns to the usage of pronouns and from music videos to road signs. No prior background of Hebrew or Israeli culture is required.

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Requirements class fulfills