Study Guide for Third Mid-Term and Final Exam

Please note: Questions on the mid-term and final will not necessarily be drawn from the following list of questions, names and dates, nor will mid-term questions follow the model of those given here. This list is intended merely as a check list to help you decide whether you have covered the material adequately. If you have thought about these concepts and can identify these people, you will have the resources in your mind to be able to grapple with the test questions.

I. Broad concepts (Mid-Term):

1. What caused the rise of Jewish nationalism during the late nineteenth century? Was it a religious movement, or were there more secular forces behind it?

2. What is the importance and place of the Holocaust in Jewish history? Did the state of Israel come about because of it, or in spite of it?

3. What was the nature of the Jewish American experience in comparison to the experience in Europe? Why did so many Jews emigrate? What was the nature of this migration?

4. How have Jewish traditions been changed in reaction to modernizing forces such as emancipation, nationalism, and immigration to the United States.

5. Is there a relationship between anti-Semitism and modernization? What is distinctive about anti-Semitism beginning in the nineteenth century?

II. Important Figures and Concepts

The Jewish Problem

Dreyfus Affair

Diaspora Nationalism

Theodore Herzl

Charitable Nationalism

L’Alliance Israelite Universelle

Zionism

Simon Dubnow

1881 Pogroms in Russian Empire

“Rome and Jerusalem”

Leon Pinsker

Israel Zangwill

Einsatzgruppen

Final Solution

Nuremberg Laws

The Bund

Partition Plan

David Ben Gurion

III. Broad Concepts (Final)

Note: These questions are not possible questions for the final exam, but are aimed to provide you with possible themes and ideas with which to focus your studying.

1. Define modernity. What are some of the ways Jews have reacted to the forces of modernity since 1650?

2. How have Jews reacted to challenges such as emancipation and assimilation since the late eighteenth century?

3. What is the effect of demographic change upon Jewish history since 1650? How have population growth and migrations altered the character of Judaism and what challenges have been created by them?

4. Through this period Judaism in Western Europe and Judaism in Eastern Europe have experienced a multitude of changes, and have often developed different, distinct characters in their relationship with the state, nationalism, and cultural and religious identity. What were the causes of these differences?

5. How has nationalism shaped the Jewish faith and Jewish self-definition?