The course is intended to give Jewish studies minors a general introduction to the field through a survey of religious and cultural expressions of Jews across time and geographies. No previous knowledge of Judaism or Jewish Studies is necessary.

This course traces many of the key developments of the Jewish religion, culture, and people over the last 1000 years. Topics of study include: the canonization of Judaism’s most sacred texts; the emergence and development of Jewish courts and legal codes; mass expulsions and migrations; 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 Jews, Muslims, and Christians; the emergence of Zionism, Yiddishism, and other modern Jewish political and cultural movements; and the global impact of the Israeli-Arab conflict. Along the way, the class introduces students 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. One of the world’s most important Jewish communities of the past millenium, France and the French-speaking world, offers a laboratory for exploring these themes. 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 and saw major collaboration with the Nazis during World War II. As France’s colonies in North Africa gained their independence and became aligned with the Arab world, large and long-established Jewish communities fled from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, with most migrating to France, Israel, or Canada. France has witnessed a significant spike in anti-Jewish acts since 2000. By focusing on France and the Francophone world, we thus come to understand the broader development of the Jewish Religion, Culture, and People, and how it is that scholars have come to study them.

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Requirements class fulfills