Winter 2025 Undergraduate Course Descriptions (2024)

Description: This course will serve as a general introduction to the nature and history of Jewish Law. Among the topics to be addressed are: Narrative and Law, Religion, and Morality; Redemption of Hostages; Medical Ethics (End of life Issues and Issues of Consent); and AID (Artificial Insemination from Donor). Other issues will be discussed depending on time and will be chosen in consultation with the students. While secondary material will be assigned for background, the focus will be on the close reading of selected Jewish legal texts from the Mishnah and Talmud as well as such post-Talmudic texts as Maimonides’ great code of Jewish Law, the Mishneh Torah, and a variety of both medieval and modern responsa (judicial opinions). A key goal will be to acquire a “feel” for characteristic modes of halakhic (Jewish legal) thinking and reasoning, precisely through immersing oneself in the primary sources. A special feature of this course will be its havruta style: that is, for part of some classes, students will study and prepare the primary texts in havrutot (small groups).

Evaluation:
10%: Class Attendance and Participation
20%: Take Home Mid-Term
30%: Eight to ten-page analysis of a primary text or important secondary discussion
40%: Three Hour Take-Home Final

Description:The objective is to master basic communication in Modern Hebrew language.Students will develop the four language skills of understanding, speaking, reading and writing through the acquisition of basic structures of the language, i.e., grammar, syntax, vocabulary, as well as idiomatic expressions, in order to be able to communicate in Modern Hebrew orally and in writing. Communicative activities, oral practice, written exercises and compositions will be assigned regularly, in order to help integrate skills and reinforce learning. In addition, because the acquisition of a modern language also entails awareness of the culture of its linguistic community, the students will become aware of cultural elements associated with the language.

Texts:Shlomit Chayat et al.Hebrew from Scratch, Part I

Evaluation:
60% 4 class tests
15% Essays
20% Oral presentation
5% Class participation

Description:The second part of the introduction to the millennium-old language of Ashkenazic Jews. This course will continue covering the fundamentals of Yiddish grammar and vocabulary and will include further practice in speaking, reading, and writing. The course materials draw on Yiddish literature, songs, and films, allowing students to combine the acquisition of practical language skills with an exploration of Yiddish culture—from its beginnings in medieval Germany through its past and present in Central and Eastern Europe, the Americas, Israel, and all over the world. An important component of the course is the opportunity students will have to pursue Yiddish-related artistic or research projects (individually or in small groups), combining exploration of Yiddish with creative writing, translation, acting, filmmaking, religion, anthropology, history, painting, and journalism, to name just some of the options. While this course is the direct continuation of JWST 281 Introductory Yiddish 1, it may also be taken independently by students with adequate prior knowledge. With any questions, please email the instructor.

Texts:Course Pack; online resources.

Evaluation:
Attendance and homework; in-class quizzes; final project; final exam

Texts:Shlomit Chayat et al. Hebrew from Scratch, Part I + CD

Evaluation:
48% - 4 class tests (6%, 10%, 14%, 18%)
12% - Quizzes
12% - 2 in-class essays
10% - Compositions
10% - Oral presentation
​8% - Class participation

Description: In this course, we will study in depth the biblical books of I and II Samuel. We will explore matters of content, theme and style as well as questions regarding historical and cultural context, linguistic features, and authorship. We will pay special attention to the figures of Samuel, Saul and David as they emerge in the biblical narratives, and in later rabbinic midrashim, medieval commentaries, modern biblical scholarship, and even art and literature.

All texts will be examined in translation.

Texts: Hebrew Bible in English translation. Other primary texts and secondary readings will be available on MyCourses or on reserve in the library.

Evaluation: Written assignment, research paper, two in-class evaluations.

Description: In this course we will focus on three topics: (i) the moral and political conditions that medieval Muslim and Jewish philosophers argued must be in place to enable us to live a happy and flourishing life; (ii) the tools they offer to comfort us when bad things happen and make us suffer; (iii) how they interpreted Islam and Judaism as guides to the best life and as resources for consolation.

On the Muslim side we will read the short treatise On the Art of Dispelling Sorrow by al-Kindî (ca. 800-870 CE) and the Selected Aphorisms by al-Fârâbî (ca. 870-950). The Art of Dispelling Sorrow is an intriguing Muslim contribution to the genre of philosophical consolation; the Aphorisms are one of the most influential statements of moral and political philosophy in the tradition of Plato and Aristotle in medieval Islamic thought.

On the Jewish side we will focus on Maimonides (1138-1204), the most famous medieval Jewish Aristotelian who was a keen student of Greek and Arabic philosophy and was especially fond of al-Fârâbî. We will look at how Maimonides incorporates the moral theory of the philosophers into a Jewish ethics. Like Greek and Muslim philosophers, Maimonides argues that the best life is one that is both virtuous and happy. But the best guide to such a life, he contends, is the Torah, the Law of Moses, whose prescriptions embody the practical wisdom we need to flourish. Contemplation, the theoretical grasp of the natural order, which the philosophers take to be the pinnacle of virtue and happiness, is for Maimonides at the same time the fulfillment of the commandment to love God. Finally we will examine Maimonides' discussion of the Biblical Job to learn how he proposes to deal with human suffering from a philosophical and Jewish angle.

At the end of the class we will have familiarized ourselves with core themes in medieval Islamic and Jewish ethics: from virtue and happiness to contemplation and consolation.

Course Materials:

• Al-Kindî, On the Art of Dispelling Sorrow
• Al-Fârâbî, Selected Aphorisms
• Maimonides, Eight Chapters
• Maimonides, Ethical Writings of Maimonides
• Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed (excerpts)

Evaluation:
Active course participation: 10%
Presentation: 15%
Short paper: 20%
Presentation of final paper project: 15%
Final comparative paper on a core theme in medieval Islamic and Jewish ethics: 40%

Description: The objective is to communicate on familiar topics in Modern Hebrew language. Students will develop the four language skills of understanding, speaking, reading and writing through the acquisition of the advanced structures of the language, i.e., grammar, syntax, vocabulary, as well as idiomatic expressions, in order to be able to communicate in Modern Hebrew orally and in writing. Communicative activities, oral practice, written exercises and compositions will be assigned regularly, in order to help integrate skills and reinforce learning. In addition, because the acquisition of a modern language also entails awareness of the culture of its linguistic community, the students will become aware of cultural elements associated with the language.

Texts: Edna Amir Coffin. Lessons in Modern Hebrew: Level II (2) Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Recommended Text: Hebrew Dictionary (Oxford, Eng-Heb, Heb-Eng Dictionary, Kernerman – Lonnie Kahn)

Evaluation:
48% - 4 class tests (6%, 10%, 14%, 18%)
12% - Quizzes
12% - 2 in-class essays
14% - Compositions
10% - Oral presentation
4% - Class participation

Description: Looking beyond the borders of empires and nation states, this course aims to study the experience of Jews in Europe, vis-à-vis those residing in the Middle East, North and South America, as well as Australia. While studying the key developments of the twentieth century, arguably the most transformative period in Jewish history, this course will pay particular attention to patterns of social and cultural exchange(s) between European Jews and their coreligionists elsewhere, along with the themes of migration, diasporas, memory, and material culture.

Texts:

• John Efron, et. al., The Jews: A History 3^rd edition
• Ava F. Kahn and Adam Mendelsohn ed., Transnational Traditions: New Perspectives on American Jewish History, 2014 (selections)
• Course Reader

Evaluation:
Attendance and participation 15%
Weekly reading responses 50%
In class presentation 35%

Description: Before Zionism there were liturgical, poetic, mythical and sometimes political longings to return a dispersed Jewry to its ancient homeland. The modern Jewish movement for national autoemancipation was led by figures such as Theodor Hertzl, H.N. Bialik, Ahad Ha’am and others who defined themselves first and foremost as professional writers – journalists, poets, essayists, playwrights. This course will explore modern Zionism through influential literary productions by these and other authors. We will put their literary work in dialogue with their political pamphleteering; and we will use these comparisons to assess the tensions between cultural pressures and personal priorities in those days compared to tensions, pressures and priorities that we observe today.

Texts:

• Benjamin Disraeli’s The Wondrous Tale of Alroy (1833)
• Theodor Hertzl’s Der Judenstaad (1896)
• Theodor Hertzl’s Altneuland (1902)
• Sholem Aleichem’s, “Ferbengt aheym” (1918)
• S. Y. Agnon’s Only Yesterday (1945)
• Ilana Pardes’s The Biography of Ancient Israel (2002)

  Other key literary texts and essays

Evaluation: Short papers; oral presentations; attendance and discussion.

Description: In the 1960s, Shmuel Leiter, Professor of Hebrew Literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary, lamented the lack of Jewish biographies. He blamed this lack on a historical esteem of modesty and antipathy to hero worship. Today, Leiter might not lament. In 2006, Yale University Press launched the book series Jewish Lives, which now includes sixty-eight titles. This series is one of many projects, in various media, concerned with telling the life stories of Jewish people.

But Leiter’s concern and its redress raise many questions. What is meant by “Jewish biography”? Was Leiter right that works fitting this description were few? Was he right about the cause? What are the origins of the biographical tradition in Jewish literature? What about the autobiographical? What are the reasons for the evident growth in Jewish biography in the last sixty years? Whose lives are receiving more, or less, attention? What impact can a biography have?

Then there are questions that pertain to all biography. What is the relation of form to content? How can chronology be balanced with pattern and recursion? How does the biographer’s relation to the subject shape the telling? How can life stories be told about challenging subjects, such as those who are not obviously, or only, heroic, or for whom sources are limited?

To consider these questions, we will read among various genres (e.g. children’s books, obituaries, full-length biographies) and about figures from many places and times.

All texts will be in English.

Format: Lecture and discussion.

Evaluation: Two written assignments, oral presentation, class preparation and participation.

Description: Martin Buber (1878-1965) and Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929) were perhaps the two leading Jewish philosophers of the first half of the twentieth century as well as among the leading religious existentialist philosophers of their day. In this course we will read extensive selections from their writings, ranging from their shorter essays to their major works, in particular Buber’s I and Thou and (sections from) Rosenzweig’s Star of Redemption. In addition to seeking to determine their general religious/philosophical stances, we will focus on such issues as their readings and evaluations of the Bible, their attitudes toward Judaism and Jewish Law, and their views of other religions, particularly Christianity. In all instances, we will take notice of the similarities and differences between these two great figures.

Evaluation:
Class participation: 10%
Paper on Buber: 30%
Paper on Rosenzweig: 30%
Review of scholarly work on either Buber and Rosenzweig (or on both of them together): 30%

Description: This course offers an opportunity to watch films from different periods of Israeli cinema spanning 1948 to the present. Conducted primarily in Hebrew with some assignments in English, students in this course will be invited to engage with the social, political, psychological and aesthetic dimensions of Israeli films. (This is primarily a language class and advanced Hebrew is required to enrol in this course; if you are unsure about your level of Hebrew please consult with the instructor.)

Texts: Hebrew Dictionary

Evaluation:
40% - Essay (1500 words min.)
10% - 2 Take-home compositions (300 words each)
30% - 2 In-class essays (300 words each)
10% - Text preparation assignments (to be marked at random)
10% - Class participation

Description: Focusing on four locales, this course will survey social, cultural, and political Jewish history across the region during the 1920s and 1930s. This time, marked by profound contradictions, contained growing economic and political distress, yet concurrently, an incredible resourcefulness and vitality. We will interrogate the internal developments within various Jewish communities, studying the diversity of Jewish religious, linguistic, cultural, political, and secular expressions. Through film, Jewish press across four languages: Yiddish, Polish, Hebrew and Russian (translated), advertisem*nts, autobiographies of Jewish adolescents, selections from cookbooks, and literary sources, we will further consider everyday life in large Jewish metropolises, vis-à-vis the realities of shtetlekh (small towns). Throughout this course, we will also examine the economic and social conditions, as well as various increasing pressures that Jewish citizens were experiencing from society at large, namely rampant nationalism and antisemitism.

Texts:

• Ezra Mendelsohn, The Jews of East Central Europe, Between the World Wars, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983.
• Zvi Gitelman, A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001.
• Course Reader

Evaluation:
Attendance and participation: 15%
Primary source analysis (3-4 pg.): 25%
Research essay: 30%
Final exam: 30%

Description: An exploration of how diverse voices in the Jewish community have responded to important recent and contemporary social and political challenges including poverty, the Civil Rights movement, Black Lives Matter, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the environmental crisis, and immigration.

Texts will include:

• Achad Ha’am, “Priest and Prophet.” (1893)
• Emma Goldman, “The Joys of Touring.” (1908)
• Abraham Joshua Heschel, “Interview with Carl Stern.” (1972)
• Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, “Diasporism, Feminism and Coalition” (1998)
• Batya Ungar-Sargon, “Why Do Jews Keep Tearing Down Black Leaders?” (2019)
• Kate Rosenblatt, Lila Corwin Berman, and Ronit Stahl, “How Jewish Academia Created a #MeToo Disaster” (2018)
• Peter Beinart, “Yavne: A Jewish Case for Equality in Israel-Palestine” (2020)
• Everett and Mary Gendler, “Teaching Shalom in the Shadow of Tibet: Nonviolent Resistance for National Survival” (1998)
• Sandra Lawson, “I’m a Black Rabbi. I’ve Never Been in a Jewish Space Where I Wasn’t Questioned” (2021)
• Mirele Goldsmith, “Stop Now! Shmita and Climate Change” (2015)
• Joy Ladin, “Reading Between the Angels: How Torah Speaks to Transgender Jews” (2012)
• Jill Jacobs, “How to tell when criticism of Israel is actually antisemitism” (20218/2024)

Evaluation:
2 Papers 65%
Reading responses/Perusalls/in-class presentation 25%
Participation 10%