Designed primarily to permit the instructors to deal with a topic with which they are especially concerned, usually more restricted than the subject matter of a regular lecture course. A combination of informal lectures and discussions, term papers, and examinations. Instructors and subject to vary. Consult department website during pre-enrollment week each semester for specific topic.

This course focuses on the historical experience of one of the world’s most important Jewish communities, that of France and the French-speaking world. In the Middle Ages, France was home to the great Medieval rabbi Rashi, who wrote what remains the definitive set of commentaries and explanations on the Torah (the Five Books of Moses), and the Talmud (the Jewish oral law). During the French Revolution, France became the first country to make its Jews equal citizens. From the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, hundreds of thousands of Jews across Eurasia learned to speak French and love French culture in French Jewish schools that stretched from Morocco to Iran to Russia. In the twentieth-century, France had five prime ministers of Jewish descent, and today, the country has the second-largest Jewish community in the world outside of Israel, with more than 300 kosher restaurants in Paris alone. This history has its darker sides as well: France witnessed some of the most important anti-Semitic thinkers and movements beginning in the late nineteenth century, saw major collaboration with the Nazis during World War II, and has witnessed a significant spike in anti-Jewish acts since 2000. France and the Francophone world thus offer a laboratory for the broader study of Judaism and the Jewish experience over the past one thousand years. They have been the site of all the key developments of Jewish history in the past 1000 years: mass expulsions and migrations; the emergence and development of Jewish courts and legal codes; religious reform; the rise of anti-Semitism and the tragedy of the Holocaust; struggles between Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews over cultural identity; complex relations between Muslims and Jews under European colonial power; the emergence of Zionism, Yiddishism, and other modern Jewish political and cultural movements; and the impact of the Israeli-Arab conflict. As we explore these and other themes, students also become introduced to most major fields of Jewish studies, including Jewish History, Jewish Law, Jewish Thought, Medieval Judaism, Talmud, Jewish Literature, Holocaust Studies, Sephardic Studies, and Israel Studies.

Repeat Rules

Requirements class fulfills