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Lectures Readings

Homework Assignments

Extra Credit

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 text and study questions, unless otherwise stated. (Some items 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 in the Reserves room, please contact Dr. Cooperman (bc40@umail.umd.edu) as soon as possible (not on the day of the class for which the reading is 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 have written and signed 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."

Week 1:

Film of the Week:

"Stadt ohne Juden" ("City Without Jews"; 1924). Dir. by Hans Karl Breslauer. Based on a novel of the same name by Hugo Bettauer. 80 minutes.

Wed. Aug. 31 Introduction:  The Urban Context of Jewish Historical Experience. The Goals of the Course.

Fri. Sept. 2 What is a City?  Approaches to Urban History and Geography

Reading:

Spiro Kostof, "What is a City?" in The City Shaped:  Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston, 1991): 37-41. UMCP Architecture Library ref. HT111.K63

Homework assignment #1 due

Jews as an Urbanizing Element:  A Chronological Survey

Week 2:

Mon. Sept. 5 LABOR DAY

Wed. Sept. 7 Ethnic Identity in the Cities of Late Antiquity

Readings: 

Lee Levine, "The Jewish Community in Caesarea in Late Antiquity" in Caesarea Papers, Journal of Roman Archaeology, Supplementary Series, No. 5 (1992). McKeldin ref. Folio DS110.C13 C34

Josephus, Antiquities XI , Loeb Classics (Boston, 1926). McKeldin ref. PA3612.J67 1926

Philo of Alexandria, The Legatio ad Gaium, trans. with commentaries by E. Mary Smallwood (Leiden, 1961). McKeldin ref. DS135.E4P483

Homework assignment #2 (brief paper) due

 

Fri. Sept. 9 The Middle Ages:  Dar-al-Islam and Christendom

Readings:

The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Travels in the Middle Ages (Malibu, 1983): 35-42. McKeldin ref. G370.B5 B4613

The Pact of Omar, Paul Halsall, editor, Internet Medieval Sourcebook (Fordham University Center for Medieval Studies)

Norman Stillman, "The Jew in the Medieval Islamic City" in Daniel Frank, ed., The Jews of Medieval Islam:  Community, Society, and Identity (New York, 1995): 3-13. McKeldin ref. DS135.L4J48

Moses Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, trans. by Shlomo Pines (Chicago, 1963), Book III:51 ("The Parable of the Palace"). McK BM545.D33P5. Also useful for our discussion is Book II:40.

"Local Charters" in Robert Chazan, ed., Church, State, and Jew in the Middle Ages (New York, 1980): 55-59.  This item is only available at McKeldin Reserves; ref. DS102.C48

Irving Agus, Urban Civilization in Pre-Crusade Europe, vols. 1-2 (New York, 1965): 224-227, 431-32, 499-507. McKeldin ref. CB354.A35

Eli Barnavi, ed., A Historical Atlas of the Jewish People from the Time of the Patriarchs to the Present (New York, 1992): vi-ix ("The Perception of Space") and xii-1 ("Demography").  McKeldin reserves XPB 3221.A1

 

 

Week 3:

Film of the Week:

"Image Before My Eyes" (1991). 91 minutes. Dir. by Josh Waletzky. DS135.P6 I421991

Mon. Sept. 12 The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe; Sephardim and Ashkenazim; Colonial Expansions; the Ghetto in Italy and Germany

Primary Sources:

"The Oldest Extant Constitution of a North American Jewish Community (1728)"

"Constitution and Charter of Rodeph Shalom, Philadelphia, 1810-1812"

Readings: 

Benjamin Ravid, "From Geographical Realia to Historiographical Symbol: The Odyssey of the Word Ghetto" in David B. Ruderman, ed., Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy (New York, 1992). McKeldin ref. BM322.E87

Kenneth R. Stow, "The Consciousness of Closure: Roman Jewry and Its Ghet" also in Ruderman, ed., Essential Papers

Amos Elon, Founder: A Portrait of the First Rothschild and His Time (New York, 1997): 19-48. McKeldin ref. HG1552.R82 E46

Homework assignment #3 due

 

Wed. Sept. 14 The Modern Period: New Patterns of Urbanization in Eastern Europe; Shtetl Dynamics and Urban "Ghettos"

Readings: 

Friesel, Evyatar. Atlas of Modern Jewish History (New York, 1990): 14 ("Urbanization Among Jews") and 19 ("Rate of Urbanization Among Jews"). McKeldin ref. G1030.F6513

Selections from The Samurai of Vishogrod: The Notebooks of Jacob Marateck retold by Shimon and Anita Wincelberg (Philadelphia,1976). McKeldin ref. DS135.R95 M288

Joshua Rothenberg, "Demythologizing the Shtetl" in Midstream (March 1981): 25-31. McKeldin ref. DS149.A336

"Impressions of a Journey through the Tomaszow Region" in Ruth R. Wisse, editor, The I.L. Peretz Reader (New York, 1990): 20-34. McKeldin ref. PJ5129.P4 A28

Week 4:

Film of the Week:

"The Other Half Revisited: The Legacy of Jacob A. Riis" (1996). Dir. by Martin D. Toub. 60 minutes. V4046.N6 R75 1996.

Fri. Sept. 16 Patterns of Jewish Immigration and Settlement in Western Europe and America

Homework assignments #5 (bibliography) and #6 due

Primary Source:

"New York City Free Loan Societies (1917)"

Reading: 

Jacob Riis, How The Other Half Lives: Among the Tenements of New York (1890; Boston, 1996): 3-43 (Part I) and 63-72 (chapts. I-II), 128-148 (chapts. X-XI), 214-227 (chapts. XX-XXI). McKeldin HV4046.N6 R55 1997 (Note: McKeldin owns a different edition; page numbers will vary.)

Homework assignment #4 due

 

Mon. Sept. 19 Concentration and Expansion within Cities and Suburbs

Primary Sources:

"Jewish Community Council of Essex County, New Jersey, 1945"

"The Greater Boston Area Jewish Ensemble, 1985"

Reading: 

Herbert Gans, "The Origin and Growth of a Jewish Community in the Suburbs: A Study of the Jews of Park Forest" in Marshall Sklare, ed., The Jews: Social Patterns of an American Group (New York, 1974): 205-48. McKeldin ref. E184.J5 555

 

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Themes from the Jewish Urban Experience

 

Wed. Sept. 21 Traditions of Jewish Self-Government:  the Kehila

Primary Source:

"Charter of the Kehillah (Jewish Community) of New York City, April 5, 1914"

Reading:

Jacob Katz, Tradition and Crisis: Jewish Society at the End of the Middle Ages (New York, 1993): 65-112. McKeldin Reserves; ref. DS112.K373 1993

 

Fri. Sept. 23 Organizational Adaptations; Lantsmanshaftn and Cemeteries

Primary Source:

"Camden, New Jersey Combination Synagogue and Burial Society, 1894"

Reading: 

David G. Roskies, "A Revolution Set in Stone: The Art of Burial" in The Jewish Search for a Usable Past (Bloomington, 1999): 120-145 (chapt. 7). McKeldin S112.R755 1999 

Week 5:

Mon. Sept. 26 Ethnic Success and Failure

Reading:

Stephen Steinberg, The Ethnic Myth (Boston, 1989): 5-105 (chapts. 1-3) and one additional chapter (either chapt. 4, 5 or 6). McKeldin ref. E184.A1 S794

Wed. Sept. 28 The Changing Role of Women

Readings: 

Charlotte Baum, et al., The Jewish Woman in America (New York, 1976): 91-120 (chapt. 4). McKeldin ref. E184.J5 B37

Paula Hyman, "Gender and the Immigrant Jewish Experience in the United States" in Judith Baskin, ed., Jewish Women in Historical Perspective (Detroit, 1991): 222-42. McKeldin ref. BM729.W6 J49 1998

Selections from Anzia Yezierska, Bread Givers (New York, 1975). McKeldin Reserves; ref. PZ3.Y5Br 1975a

 

Fri. Sept. 30 The Changing Role of Women (cont.)

Week 6:

Film of the Week:

"Crossing Delancey" (1988). Dir. by Joan Micklin Silver. 97 minutes. PN1997.C777 1988.

Mon. Oct. 3 Mid-Term Exam [sample questions]

Wed. Oct. 5 ROSH HA-SHANA (Jewish New Year). No class.

Extra Credit Assignment

Fri. Oct. 7

Week 7:

Film of the Week:

"Mamele" (1988). Dir. by Joseph Green and Konrad Tom. 95 minutes. PN1997.M265 1988

Mon. Oct. 10

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The City as Hope and Fear:

The Crafting of Urban Images in Jewish Fiction

Wed. Oct. 12 Photographic Images: East European Jewish Life and American Immigrant Neighborhoods

Reading: 

Lucjan Dobroszycki, "Settlements" in Image Before My Eyes: A Photographic History of Jewish Life in Poland, 1864-1939 (New York, 1977): 41-56 (skim the rest of the volume). McKeldin Reserves. Ref. DS135.P6D62

Deborah Dash Moore and David Lobenstine, "Photographing the Lower East Side: A Century's Work," in Remembering the Lower East Side: American Jewish Reflections (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), pp. 28–69.

Photo collection: 

Roman Vishniac, A Vanished World (New York, 1983): See photo numbers 9, 12, 13, 18, 27, 34, 41, 43, 62, 110, 111, 113; McKeldin Reserves; ref. DS135.E8 V57 1983 FOLIO

Homework assignment #7 (second brief paper) due

 

Fri. Oct. 14 Film Discussion - Nostalgic Immigrant Neighborhoods

"Joshua, Then and Now" (1986). Dir. by Ted Kotcheff. 102 minutes. SHOWN IN CLASS.

Week 8:

Film of the Week:

"Hester Street" (1990). Dir. by Joan Micklin Silver. 89 minutes. PN1997.H456 1990z

Mon. Oct. 17 City Modernity vs. Shtetl Traditionalism:  First Experiences of the City; Universal Claims in Jewish Particularism

Readings: 

Selections from Israel Aksenfeld, "The Headband" (1863) in Joachim Neugroschel, trans. and ed., The Shtetl, (New York, 1979): 49-107. McKeldin ref. PJ5191.E855

Israel Joshua (I.J.) Singer, "Pearls" in The River Breaks Up: A Volume of Stories Trans. from the Yiddish by Maurice Samuel (New York, 1966): 25-67. McKeldin ref. PZ3.S6166 Ri 1966

Isaac Babel, "The Jewess" (163-184) and "Odessa" (26-30) in You Must Know Everything. Stories 1915-1937, trans. by Max Hayward and ed. by Nathalie Babel (New York, 1969). PZ3.B117

Wed. Oct. 19 Sukkot (Jewish Holy Day) No Class.

Fri. Oct. 21 Poverty and Social Conflict:  Popular Religion in an Urban Context; Fictional Neighborhoods and Urban Salvations

Readings: 

I.J. Singer, "Sender Praguer", The River Breaks Up, A Volume of Stories (New York, 1966). McKeldin ref. PZ3.S6166 Ri 1966

Shalom Asch, "God of Vengeance" translated by Isaac Goldberg (Boston, 1918). PJ5129.A8 G63. (Entire reading is on-line.)

Week 9:

Films of the Week:

"Call It Sleep" (2000). Dir. by Martin Hoade. 25 minutes. PN1992.8.FS C35 2000
"Angel Levine" (1970). Dir. by Harry Belafonte. 106 minutes.

Mon. Oct. 24 Emerging from the Old Neighborhood: The Suburbs

FILM SHOWN IN CLASS: "Nomi's Bat Mitzvah" (2000). Dir. by Jessica Sharzer.

Wed. Oct. 26 Simhat Torah (Jewish Holy Day) No Class.

Fri. Oct. 28 Emerging from the Old Neighborhood: Space as Nostalgia

Reading: 

Henry Roth, Call It Sleep (New York, 1991). McKeldin PZ3.R74274Cal 1970

Hana Wirth-Nesher, "Call It Sleep: Jewish, American, Modernist, Classic" in Judaism 44 (1995):  388-98. McKeldin Reserves

or

Hana Wirth-Nesher, "Afterword: Between Mother Tongue and Native Language in Call It Sleep," pp. 443–462 in the 1991 edition of the novel.

Week 10:

Film of the Week:

"Fires in the Mirror" (1993). Dir. by George C. Wolfe. Written and performed by Anna Deavere Smith. PNMI VHS Ref. 81. 82 minutes.

Mon. Oct. 31 The Yizkor Bukh and the Invention of the Shtetl; When We Were Poor:  the Invention of the "Good Old Days"

Readings: 

Philip Roth, Goodbye, Columbus (1959; Boston, 1989). McKeldin Reserves. Ref. PS3568.O855G6 1989. Note: This story is also on electronic reserve. Please ask the professor for the electronic reserves password if you do not know it.

Bernard Malamud, "Angel Levine", The Complete Stories, ed. and intro. by Robert Giroux (New York, 1997). McKeldin ref. PS3563.A4 1997

Text to "My Yiddishe Mama" sung by Sophie Tucker

Wed. Nov. 2 The Urban Riot:  Realities and Fictions of Ethnic Tension

Readings: 

Robert Weinberg, "The Pogrom of 1905 in Odessa: A Case Study" in John D. Klier and Shlomo Lambroza, eds., Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History (Cambridge, 1992): 248-89. McK. DS135.R9 P55

Lamed Shapiro, "White Challa" and "The Kiss" in The Jewish Government and Other Stories, trans. by Curt Leviant (New York, 1971): 54-64; 169-172.  McK. Reserves

Hayyim Nahman Bialik, "In the City of Slaughter", Complete Poetic Works, ed. with intro. by Israel Efros (New York, 1948). McK. Reserves; PJ5053.B5 A3

Maxine Rodburg, "The Law of Return" in The Law of Return (Pittsburgh, 1999): 9-36.   McK. Reserves; PS3568.O3448L29. Note: This story is also on electronic reserve.

Fri. Nov 4 The Crown Heights Riots

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Holy Places:  Making the Urban Sacred

Week 11:

Films of the Week:

"Postville: When Cultures Collide" (2001). Producer and Writer Nikki Tundel. 56 minutes. F630.J5 P67 2001

Mon. Nov. 7 How Jerusalem became Holy

Readings: 

Genesis 4, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 23.  Skim the chapters looking for images of the city.  [There are further references in the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 2 Kings, and 1 Chronicles.]  Find a copy of the Bible in the reference section of McKeldin Library.

Nitza Rosovky, ed., City of the Great King: Jerusalem from David to the Present (Cambridge, MA., 1996): chapts. 1-2 (especially, 9-14 and 37-41), 3, and 7. This item is only available in McKeldin Library Reserves. Ref. DS109.9C58 1996.

Moshe Weinfeld, "Jerusalem: A Political and Spiritual Capital" in Joan Goodnick Westenholz, ed., Capital Cities:  Urban Planning and Spiritual Dimensions (Jerusalem, 1998): 15-40. McKeldin ref. DS41.5.C27.

Model of First-Century Jerusalem on the Web

 

Wed. Nov. 9 From Private Chapel to Public Space - The Early Modern and Modern Synagogue; the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

Reading: 

Carol Herselle Krinsky, Synagogues of Europe:  Architecture, History, Meaning (New York, 1996): 59-93. Note: Be sure to look at the photographs of the synagogues referred to in the margins of the assigned pages. McKeldin reserves; ref. NA5450.K75 1996 FOLIO. This book is also available at the Hornbake Library Maryland Room.

Fri. Nov. 11 The Sacred and the Secular: Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv

Readings: 

Samuel Heilman, A Walker in Jerusalem (New York, 1986): Part 1 (chapts. 7-9) and Part 3 (303-49).  McKeldin reserves; ref. DS109.H38

Samuel Heilman, "Passover in the Mea Shearim and Geula Neighborhoods of Jerusalem" in Jewish Settlement and Community in the Modern Western World, Ronald Dotterer et al., ed. (London, 1991): 200-207.  McKeldin reserves; ref. DS143.J49

Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi, "'Jerusalem Assassinated Rabin and Tel Aviv Commemorated him': Rabin Memorials and the Discourse of National Identity in Israel," City & Society (Annual Review; 1998): 183-203

Homework assignment #8 (third brief paper) due

 

Week 12:

Films of the Week:

"A Life Apart: Hasidism in America (1997)." Dir. by Menachem Daum and Oren Rudavsky. 95 minutes. BM198.4.U6 L54 1997
"In Satmar Custody" (2003). Directed by Nitzan Gilady. 70 minutes.
"60 Minutes: Kiryas Joel" (1994). Anchored by Ed Bradley. 20 minutes.

Mon. Nov. 14 Kiryas Joel: An American Orthodox Enclave

Reading: 

Jerome Mintz Hasidic People. A Place in the New World. (Cambridge, MA, 1992): 198-205 (Chapt. 18: "New Square: Shtetl and Suburb"), 206-215 (Chapt. 19: "Satmar's Kiryas Joel"), 236-247 (Chapt. 21: "Political Change in Crown Heights"), 248-268 (Chapt. 22: "The Housing Labyrinth in Williamsburg"), 309-327 (Chapt. 26: "Kiryas Joel: In Court and Out"), and 328-347 (Chapt. 27: "Rumor and Riot in Crown Heights"). McK. F128.9.J5 M46

Website prepared by Chelsea Morris (2004) website local

Wed. Nov. 16 Kiryas Joel: An American Enclave - Continuation

Readings:

Jerome Mintz, Hasidic People. A Place in the New World. (Cambridge, MA, 1992): 139-153 (Chapt. 13: Politics and Race in Crown Heights) and 189-197 (Chapt. 17: Before the Supreme Court). McK. F128.9.J5 M46

Fri. Nov. 18 Jerusalem: Contested Space (An Introduction)

Readings:

Avishai Margalit, "The Myth of Jerusalem" in Views in Review: Politics and Culture in the State of the Jews (New York, 1999): 178-204. McKeldin ref. DS126.5.M326

Edward W. Said, "Leaving Palestine" in The New York Review of Books (Sept. 23, 1999). See study questions.

Amos Elon, Jerusalem: Battlegrounds of Memory (New York, 1995; updated reissue of Jerusalem: City of Mirrors, 1989): 238-251 (chapts. 7 and 8). McKeldin Reserves; ref. DS109.15.E46

[Note: This is a delightful word portrait of Jerusalem and the religious passions which shape life in the city.  The text, slightly out of date, tries to present the various religious traditions and the modern history of the city in a balanced fashion.  The last two chapters provide an excellent introduction to the modern history of the city.]

Amir Cheshin, et al., Separate and Unequal. The Inside Story of Israeli Rule in East Jerusalem. (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1999). McKeldin ref. DS109.94.C49 1999. This account of policy making on the part of the Israeli municipal government of Jerusalem provides useful background for your final paper.

Sarah Kaminker, "For Arabs Only: Building Restrictions in East Jerusalem" in Journal of Palestine Studies 26:4 (Summer 1997): 5-16.  McKeldin Reserves; ref. DS119.7.J63. The presentation of Israeli policy in this reading (as well as in the Cheshin book) have recently been challenged by a new study that you may also find useful: Justus Reid Weiner, Illegal Construction in Jerusalem: A Variation on an Alarming Global Phenomenon (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2003), McK HD 9715.I72W45 2003 (on reserve).

 

Week 13:

Films of the Week:

[REPEAT SHOWING FOR NON-GERMAN SPEAKERS] "Stadt ohne Juden" ("City Without Jews"; 1924). Dir. by Hans Karl Breslauer. Based on a novel of the same name by Hugo Bettauer. 80 minutes. Note: English inter-titles now available at the front desk at Hornbake.

"Chronicle of a Jerusalem Courtyard." (2003). Dir. by Tom Barkai and Tzvika Nevo (Mann). 28 minutes.

Mon. Nov. 21

POSITION PAPER DUE AND EXCHANGED IN CLASS.

Homework assignment #8 (Part I) due

Wed. Nov. 23 Current Struggles over the Future of Jerusalem; The Dynamics of Jewish Religious Separatism

POSITION PAPER CRITIQUE DUE IN CLASS.

Homework assignment #8 (Part II) due

Fri. Nov. 25 Thanksgiving break - NO CLASS  

Films of the Week:

"Jerusalem: An Occupation Set in Stone?" (1997). Dir. by Marty Rosenbluth. 60 minutes. KMM873.4.P34 J47 1997
"Balance of Fear" (2002). Dir. by Paul Loughlin and Brendan O'Brien. 49 minutes.
"Wailing Walls" (2002). Dir. by Tor Ben-Mayor and Yehuda Litani. 49 minutes.

Mon. Nov. 28

Wed. Nov. 30 Jerusalem and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Fri. Dec. 2 Jerusalem and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict -- Continued

Week 15:

Films of the Week:

"You, Me, Jerusalem" (1996). Dir. by Micha Peled and George Khleifi. 55 minutes. DS109.94.Y68 1996
"Une Maison a Jerusalem" (1998). Dir. by Amos Gitai. 89 minutes. DS111.9.M35 1998

Mon. Dec. 5 Film Discussion - Ethnic-Religious Conflict in Comparative Perspective (Israel/Northern Ireland)

Wed. Dec. 7 Jerusalem and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict -- Continued

Fri. Dec. 9 Review of Final Papers

Homework assignment #10 (final paper) due

Week 16:

Mon. Dec. 12 Course Review

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Wed., Dec. 21 Final Examination due in Dr. Cooperman's office by 10:00 a.m.

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Purpose of Course

Grading & Requirements

Lectures Readings

Homework Assignments

Extra Credit