HISTORY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE II
History 283/Jewish Studies 235
HIST 283H/JWST 235H
Spring 2004
Mondays/Wednesdays 1:00-1:50 (Key 0106)
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Instructor:
Professor Bernard Cooperman; Taliaferro (TLF) Rm 2130; 301-405-4271. bc40@umail.umd.edu
Office hours: Mon. 11:00-12:00, Wed. 10:00-11:00, and by appointment
Teaching Assistants:
Nicholas Schlosser (FSK #3125; njschlosser@hotmail.com);
Daniel Stotland (FSK #3119; dstot@hotmail.com)
Extra
Credit |
HIST 299c is a one-credit course created especially (though not exclusively) for students in HIST 283/JWST235. Each Monday from 4 to 6 pm in LeFrak 2205 we will watch a video or film related to the modern Jewish experience. The film will be introduced by Professor Cooperman or a guest lecturer.You must sign up separately for this course. In order to receive credit, students are expected to attend at least 8 of the films and answer a written set of brief questions about each of these. There is no final examination for History 299c. To check on the number of answers you have handed in to date, click here. Assignments should be handed in to Dr. Cooperman on, or before, Friday May 14. |
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Required Texts |
Abraham Cahan, Yekl and the Imported Bridegroom (New York: Dover, 1970) Lloyd Gartner, History of the Jews in Modern Times (New York: Oxford, 2001) Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehudah Reinharz, The Jew in the Modern World 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford, 1995) Solomon Maimon, An Autobiography, with Introduction by Michael Shapiro (U. of Illinois, 2003) Helmut Walser Smith, The Butcher's Tale (New York: W.W. Norton, 2002) Gerald Sorin, Tradition Transformed. The Jewish Experience in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins 1997) Pauline Wengeroff, Rememberings, tr. by H. Wenkart; edited with afterword by B.D. Cooperman (Bethesda: Univ. Press of Maryland, 2000) |
Recommended Reference Works and Writing Guides
Eli Barnavi, A Historical Atlas of the Jewish People (New York, Schocken, 2003). A very useful and pleasantly written overview of Jewish history. Students find that its time-lines, graphics, and maps are a very good introduction to many topics and a handy guide to reviewing. A new edition appeared last fall (but the older edition is still available and may be quite a bit cheaper).
Paul W. Lovinger, Penguin Dictionary of American English Usage (Penguin (USA), 2002)
Mary Lynn Rampolla, A Pocket Guide to Writing in History 4th edition (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004)
Diana Hacker, A Pocket Style Manual (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000)
Note:
The three usage/style manuals listed above are well written and not too
expensive. There are many other similar books on the market. You should make
such books a part of your personal library and place them permanently on your
desk or a bookshelf so that you can consult them often while you write. (Some
students keep Lovinger, or other books like it, near their bed. You can read
an entry each evening. It will undoubtedly help you fall asleep, but in the
few seconds before you drop off, you will get to understand how the English
language works.) These manuals will stand you in good stead for the rest of
your life. In almost any field you choose, your future career will be determined
by how well you command language and how comfortably you can persuade others
of your positions. In this course, your papers are marked for both
content and the quality of the argument you make. The latter depends on your
control of the English language. Give yourself all the help you can get.
Lecture and Reading Schedule
Please Note: All readings and homework are due for the class under which they are listed. Students are expected to be ready to discuss the reading. For many of the readings there are study questions. Click on the title of the reading to go to the study questions, unless otherwise stated. Some readings will ONLY be available on reserve, so plan ahead. If students do not wish to read or print from the web, the readings are all available in McKeldin Library Reserves. If you cannot find a reading either here or at the Reserves desk, please contact Dr. Cooperman or one of the Teaching Assistants as soon as possible (not in the class for which the reading was due).
Don't forget to refer to this site often in order to stay up-to-date on changes to the schedule or assignments and the addition of study questions or extra credit opportunities.
Finally, please remember the following University Honor Pledge which you should write and sign on all of your assignments and exams: "I pledge on my honor that I have not given or received any unauthorized assistance on this assignment/exam."
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Mon. Jan. 26 General introduction. Methodological considerations; periodization; modernity and incipient modernism; definition of issues.
Wed. Jan. 28 Pre-Modern Jewry and Judaism. Corporate identity and communal autonomy.
Week 2:Reading: Gartner, chapt. 1 (pp. 1-25)
Mon. Feb. 2-Wed. Feb. 4 Demographic Overview. Population explosion; migratory patterns; Marrano and New Christian communities; impact of the Holocaust.
Week 3:Reading: Gartner, chapt. 2 (pp. 26-60)
Mendes-Flohr & Reinharz, pp. 701 ff. (skim 4)
Mon. Feb. 9-Wed. Feb. 11 Economic Change. Jewish artisans; court Jews; marginality and integration.
Week 4:Reading: Gartner, chapt. 3 (pp. 61-94)
Mendes-Flohr & Reinharz, chapt. I
Mon. Feb. 16-Wed. Feb. 18 Rise of Toleration. Theories and practice; Colonial experience; enlightened absolutism; English experiments.
Week 5:Reading: Gartner, chapt. 4 (pp. 95-127)
Mendes-Flohr & Reinharz, chapt. II
Mon. Feb. 23-Wed. Feb. 25 Haskallah or the Jewish Enlightenment. Social background; breakdown of communal authority; Mendelssohn and his followers; assimilation?
Mon. Mar 1 First Assignment Due: Three- to four-page review of Solomon Maimon, An Autobiography.
Wed. Mar. 3 First Mid-Term Examination.
Power Point Summaries:
Introduction Pre-Modern Patterns Demographics Economics Toleration Haskala
Mon. Mar. 8 Emancipation and Revolution. French revolution; Napoleonic retreat; Parisian Sanhedrin; 1848; final emancipations
Reading: Gartner, chapt. 5 (128-161)
Mendes-Flohr & Reinharz, chapt. III
Wed. Mar. 10 Jews in Eastern Europe. Hasidism; Eastern Haskallah; modern Jewish literature in Yiddish and Hebrew.
Week 8:Reading: Gartner, chapts. 6 & 7 (pp. 162-212). [Click on chapt. numbers individually to access relevant study questions.]
Mendes-Flohr & Reinharz, chapt. VIII
Pauline Wengeroff, Rememberings. The World of a Russian-Jewish Woman in the Nineteenth Century (University of Maryland Press, 2000)
Mon. Mar. 15-Wed. Mar. 17 (cont.)
March 21-28 Spring Break
Week 9:Reading: Helmut Walser Smith, The Butcher's Tale. Murder and Anti-Semitism in a German Town (New York: Norton, 2002):
Mon. Mar. 29 Jews in Eastern Europe. Hasidism; Eastern Haskallah; modern Jewish literature in Yiddish and Hebrew.
Wed. Mar. 31 Redefinitions of Jewish Identity in the West. Religious Reform (A. Geiger); Neo-Orthodoxy (S. R. Hirsch); Wissenschaft and Historicism (H. Graetz); "Conservative" Judaism (Z. Fraenkel).Reading: Gartner, chapts. 6 & 7 (pp. 162-212). [Click on chapt. numbers individually to access relevant study questions.]
Mendes-Flohr & Reinharz, chapt. VIII
Pauline Wengeroff, Rememberings. The World of a Russian-Jewish Woman in the Nineteenth Century (University of Maryland Press, 2000)
Reading: Mendes-Flohr & Reinharz, chapts. IV-V
Mon. Apr. 5 No class. A make-up class will be scheduled.
Wed. Apr. 7 Passover. No class. A make-up class will be scheduled.
Mon. Apr.12 Passover. No class. A make-up class will be scheduled.
Wed. April 14 Second Mid-Term Examination
Review Questions for Second Mid-Term
Mon. Apr. 19 Political Anti-Semitism. Racism; anti-Modernism; Dreyfus and the politics of anti-Semitism; background to Hitler.
Reading: Gartner, chapt. 8 (pp. 213-266)
Mendes-Flohr & Reinharz, chapt. VII
Wed Apr. 21 Jewish Nationalisms. New forms of community and voluntary association (Alliance Israelite Universelle); Diaspora nationalisms; universalist ideologies; socialism. Zionism, "Lovers of Zion"; Theodore Herzl; Zionists and Bundists; war and revolution.
Reading: Gartner, chapt. 9 (pp. 267-318) and chapt. 10 (pp. 319-346)
Mendes-Flohr & Reinharz, pp. 419-436 and chapter X
Mon. Apr. 26-Wed. Apr. 28 American
Jewry. Migrations; religious experiments; new organizational models; East
Europeans; American Jewish literature;
political awakening.
Reading: Gerald Sorin, Tradition Transformed: The Jewish Experience in American (Baltimore, 1997). Chapters 1-11.
Mendes-Flohr & Reinharz, chapt. IX
Cahan, Yekl & The Imported Bridegroom(New York, 1970)
Video: "Hester Street"
Wed. Apr. 28 Second Assignment Due
NOTE: We will schedule an extra class session this week and next to make up for the 3 classes missed because of Passover. Each session will be 1.25 hours. Tapes will available for students who cannot make the sessions.
Mon. May 3 and Extra Session I: The Inter-War Years & The Holocaust. Minority rights; political parties; Racial laws; invasion of Poland; mass murders and the "final solution"; world reactions; Jewish powerlessness and rebellion.
Reading: Gartner, chapt. 11 (pp. 347-395)
Mendes-Flohr & Reinharz, chapt. XI.
Wed. May 5 State of Israel. Migration; Arab question; War of Independence;
Reading: Gartner, chapt. 12 (pp. 396-437)Week 15:
Mon. May 10 State of Israel (cont.) "Ingathering of the Exiles"; creation of a new society; modern Hebrew Literature.
Extra Session II: Current Trends. Review.
Reading: Sorin, chapts. 12-14
Wednesday, May 12 Review Section. KEY 0106. 12 noon - 1 pm
Review Questions for Third Mid-Term and Cumulative Final
Thursday, May 13 Alternate Final Examination SHOEMAKER 2102 11 am - 1 pm
Friday, May 14 Final Examination KEY 0106 1:30 pm - 3:30 pm
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Class Requirements
1) Attendance at classes and discussion sections is mandatory.
2) Lectures assume that you have already read the assigned readings for that day or week. Quizzes in section and class will be based, for the most part, on the assigned readings. You may be called upon in any lecture to discuss or outline the relevant reading. Enjoy.
3) Quizzes will be given in section almost every week. There will also be at least one "surprise" quiz given in lecture. No make-up quizzes will be given to any students who arrive late or who do not attend the section in which a quiz is given. Only your top ten quiz grades will count.
4) Assignment #1: a 3-5 page review of Solomon Maimon's Autobiography. Your paper is due in class on Feb. 25. Please submit two copies.
5) Assignment #2: Define an important issue in the study of modern Jewish history that is illuminated in one of these books that are required readings for the course: (a) Wengeroff, Rememberings; (b) Smith, The Butcher's Tale, or (c) Cahan, Yekl and the Imported Bridegroom.
Find a scholarly article (or a chapter in a scholarly book) that addresses that theme.
In a paper of 4-5 pages,
a) summarize the arguments of your scholarly source;
b) evaluate that scholarly argument in light of the required reading you chose;
c) and finally, identify at least one website related to your theme. In an appendix to the paper, briefly discuss the usefulness and reliability of your web sources for understanding the issue you have been treating.For example: Pauline Wengeroff's Rememberings shows that elite Jews in 19th-century Eastern Europe expressed a "modern" Jewish identity by creating institutions to help their poorer co-religionists. If you decided to explore that issue further, you might then read Daniel Soyer's article,
"Brownstones and Brownsville: Elite Philanthropists and Immigrant Constituents at the Hebrew Educational Society of Brooklyn, 1899-1929" published in American Jewish History 88, 2 (June 2000), pp. 181-207. You would write a summary of Soyer's aticle and then describe what Wengeroff's memoir adds to our understanding of the issue. You might focus on the different ways she represented Jewish poverty in the town of her youth and in the city of her adulthood, on what kind of charities she supported, and on what she felt she got from this activity. Your paper might stress differences and/or continuities between Jewish charity in Russia and in America. Your appendix might discuss a website relating to the history of an organization like ORT (Organisation for the Distribution of Artisanal and Agricultural Skills among Jews), established in St. Petersburg in 1880 to help poor Jews and today, reputed to be the "largest non-governmental training organisation in the world." See, for example, http://www.ort.spb.ru/(Eng)/ortcentre/history.htm#otkrThe paper is due in class on Apr. 28.
6) Mid-Term Exams are based on the material in the lectures and readings. The first exam will cover material given from Jan. 26 through Feb. 25. The second exam will cover material given March 3 through March 29. The final exam will consist of two parts: (a) a set of questions like those on the first two "mid-term" examinations and covering the material given from April 5 to the end of term, and (b) a cumulative question that requires review of the entire course. A set of sample cumulative questions will be handed out in advance.
7) The course grade will be constructed as follows:
Class and section performance (attendance, preparation, and participation; 2 section absences allowed): 10%
Quizzes (top ten count; no make-ups): 10%
Assignment #1: 15%
Assignment #2: 15%
Mid-Term #1: 12.5%
Mid-Term #2: 12.5%
Final Exam: 25% (12.5% + 12.5%)8) Professor Cooperman and the teaching assistants will have posted office hours for meetings with any student. If these office hours do not meet your schedule, please feel free to make an appointment for some other time.