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Jewish Museum

Winter Term

The following list includes courses offered by faculty associated with the Center for Judaic Studies during Winter 2007.

  • Judiac 205 Introduction to Jewish Civilizations & Cultures
    An introduction to the history and culture of the Jews from biblical antiquity to the contemporary world.

Rabbinics & Religious Thought

  • Judaic 317 Vision & Images in Judaism
    This course examines the question of Jewish attitudes towards vision and images and the supposedly Jewish ambivalence towards images or towards seeing as a basis for cultural and religious experience.
  • Judaic 467 Seminar Topics in Judaism: Hasisdism as Mysticism - the Radical Teachings of Nahman of Bratslav
    This seminar explores the main body of Hebrew literature from 1890 to 1930, including such writers as S.Y. Abramovitz, Y.L. Peretz, Ch. N. Bialik, Y.Ch. Brenner, U.N. Gnessin, Dvora Baron, David Fogel, Rachel Bluvstein and Esther Rabb, as well as theoretical and historical writing about Modernism in general and Hebrew Modernism in particular.
  • Judaic 478 Modern Jewish Thought
    An exploration of 20th-century Jewish thinkers, including Buber, Rosenzweig, Heschel, Soloveitchik and Plaskow, and their responses to the crisis of modernity and post-modernity.
  • Judaic 517 Thinking Law in Ancient Religions & Cultures
    This course approaches how people in the ancient and early medieval world thought about law, both across the world as well as in specific cultural contexts, through the lenses of (ancient and modern) legal theory and comparison of ancient legal systems.
  • ACABS 592 Enoch & the Mosaic Torah
    After reconstructing the main stages in the history of research and discussing the complex textual structure, this seminar will focus on the theology of the Book of Jubilees, its location within Second Temple Judaism, and its relevance for Qumran and Christian Origins.

Modern Jewish Literatures and Cultures

  • Judaic 317 American Jews & Media Industries
    A look at the role of Jews in the development of media enterprises and subsequent controversies as these enterprises gained prestige.
  • Judaic 317 Jerusalem from the End of the Second Temple Period until the Arab Conquest - Archaeological Evidence & Literary Sources
    The course focuses on the history of Jerusalem from 70-640 CE, with emphasis placed upon the archaeological evidence. Literary sources, such as Josephus Flavious, the early Church fathers and Christian pilgrims will be discussed, as well as the history of modern research of the city.
  • Judaic 417 Cultural History of Russian Jews through Literature & the Arts
    At the theoretical level, this course addresses multilingualism, minority culture in an imperial context, relationships between culture & ethnicity and culture & religion over two hundred years of Jewish cultural activity in Russia. At the practical level, it discusses a wide variety of works of literature, criticism, essays, visual arts and cinema.
  • Judaic 417 Jews & the City
    This course explores Jewish engagement with diverse urban worlds. It asks how Jews imagined cities, created sacred Jewish spaces within them, responded to other urban dwellers, and shaped the physical and cultural texture of urban life. Grounded in history, the course will draw upon varied texts and approaches and will include guest lectures from distinguished visiting scholars.

History & Politics

  • Judaic 317 Contact & Conflict - Jewish Experience in Eastern & Central Europe
    This course explore the major aspects of East/Central European Jewish civilization through the prism of fiction, poetry, memoirs, and movies, which were originally created in a variety of Jewish and non-Jewish languages. Special attention will be given to the varieties of religious and secular Jewish identities, to the issues of language, assimilation, anti-Semitism, and gender.
  • Judaic 380 Medieval Jewish History: 500 - 1492 CE
    This course surveys major trends in medieval Jewish society under Islam and western Christendom respectively. Broadly, the course falls into three parts: the Jews of the Muslim world, the rise and decline of Spanish Jewry, and the rise and decline of the Jews of northern Europe.
  • Judaic 451 The Politics & Culture of Modern East European Jewry
    This course examines the institutions of the Eastern European Jewish community, religious and cultural movements, political ideologies and movements the development of modern literatures, genres of music, and the ways in which a national minority dealt with national majorities and governments, before, during and after the Holocaust.
  • Judaic 517 Translation & Transformation - Religious Conversion & Conquest
    This course illuminates issues of ethnicity and religion by exploring how Jews have defined themselves, and consequently, their relations to other groups.
  • Judaic 628 Studies in Jewish History: Jewish Culture & Thought in Interwar Europe & America
    The two decades between the end of World War I in November 1918 and the start of World War II in September 1939 witnessed an explosion of Jewish cultural activity in Europe and America. This course looks at how novelists, poets, historians, social scientists, religious thinkers, and artists contributed to and shaped modern European culture in unprecedented ways. Some directly addressed the fate and future of the Jews, the meanings of Jewishness, and the nature of Judaism, while others spoke to these concerns in more oblique ways.

Languages

  • Judaic 102 Elementary Yiddish II
    Second of a two term sequence designed to develop basic Yiddish speaking, reading and writing skills.
  • Judaic 202 Intermediate Yiddish II
    Second of a two term sequence with emphasis on speaking and reading more complicated texts.
  • Judaic 302 Advanced Yiddish II
    Third year of the language sequence with focus on literary, historical and other texts along with film and folklore.
  • ACABS 102 Elementary Classical Hebrew II
    A continuation of ACABS 101 with increased emphasis on the Biblical Hebrew verbal system and syntax.
  • ACABS 202 Intermediate Classical Hebrew II
    A continuation of ACABS 201, with increased elements of advanced grammar.
  • HJCS 102 Elementary Modern Hebrew II
    A continuation of the development of basic communications skills of reading, writing and speaking modern Hebrew.
  • HJCS 202 Intermediate Modern Hebrew II
    Review of morphology and syntax with continued emphasis on oral work and writing skills
  • HJCS 302 Advanced Hebrew II
    This course consist of Modern Hebrew prose: fiction and non-fiction. Writing and speaking skills are enhanced through a series of related assignments.
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The Frankel Center for Judaic Studies