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) or Angela Kurtz (kurtzmen@umd.edu) 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 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:

Tues. Sept. 2 Introduction:  The Urban Context of Jewish Historical Experience

Thurs. Sept. 4 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

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Jews as an Urbanizing Element:  A Chronological Survey

Week 2:

Tues. Sept. 9 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

Brief paper #1 due today

Thurs. Sept. 11 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

Norman Stillman, "The Jew in the Medieval 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): 55-93.  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 ref. DS117.J8513

 

Homework assignment

Tues. Sept. 16 The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe; Sephardim and Ashkenazim; Colonial Expansions; the Ghetto in Italy and Germany

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

 

Thurs. Sept. 18 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, ed., The I.L. Peretz Reader (New York, 1990): 20-34. McKeldin ref. PJ5129.P4 A28

Suggested Extra Reading: 

Shimon Wincelberg, "Down and Out in Chelyabinsk: A Memoir," in Judaism 44 (1995): 499-507.  [This is an excerpt from Wincelberg's planned continuation of the English version of Marateck's memoirs.] McKeldin ref. BM1.J8

 

Homework assignment

 

Week 4:

Tues. Sept. 23 Patterns of Jewish Immigration and Settlement in Western Europe and America

Bibliography due today

Reading: 

Gerald Sorin, Tradition Transformed:  The Jewish Experience in America (Baltimore, 1997): chapts. iv-vi. McKeldin ref. E184.J5 S666 (required text)

Video: 

"The Other Half Revisited:  The Legacy of Jacob A. Riis," produced by Joel Sucher, Steven Fischler, and Sam Roberts; directed and edited by Martin. D. Toub; Pacific Street (1996). Hornbake, 4th floor, Non-Print Media Reserves

Homework assignment

Thurs. Sept. 25 Concentration and Expansion within Cities and Suburbs

Reading: 

Herbert Gans, "The Origin and Growth of a Jewish Community in the Suburbs: AStudy 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

Week 5:

Tues. Sept. 30 Traditions of Jewish Self-Government:  the Kehila

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

 

Thurs. Oct. 2 Organizational Adaptations; Lantsmanshaftn and Cemeteries

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 ref. DS112.R755 1999 

Suggested Reading: 

Weisser, Michael R. A Brotherhood of Memory: Jewish Landsmanshaftn in the New World (New York, 1985)

Week 6:

Tues. Oct. 7: Ethnic Success and Failure

Reading: 

Stephen Steinberg, The Ethnic Myth (Boston, 1989). McKeldin ref. E184.A1 S794 (required text)

Thurs. Oct. 9 Ethnic Success and Failure - Continued

Reading: 

Steinberg, The Ethnic Myth

Week 7:

Tues. Oct. 14: Mid-Term Exam

Thurs. Oct. 16: 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

Suggested Readings: 

Susan Anita Glenn, Daughters of the Shtetl:  Life and Labor in the Immigrant Generation (Ithaca,  1990) McKeldin Reserves; ref. HD6073.C62U54

Abraham Cahan, Yekl and The Imported Bridegroom, and Other Stories of the New York Ghetto (New York, 1970). McKeldin ref. PS3505.A254 Y44

Suggested videos:

"Hester Street," screenplay and direction by Joan M. Silver; produced by Raphael D. Silver; Midwest Film Prodution, Inc. (1990)

"The Imported Bridegroom," written, produced, and directed by Pamela Berger; Lara Classics (1992)

 

Extra Credit Assignment

 

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The City as Hope and Fear:

The Crafting of Urban Images in Jewish Fiction

Tues. Oct. 21 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. McKeldin ref. 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.  McKeldin Reserves

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

Maxine Rodburg, "The Law of Return" in The Law of Return (Pittsburgh, 1999): 9-36.   McKeldin Reserves; ref. PS3568.O3448L29

Recommended Reading: 

Maxine Rodburg, "Keer Avenue, July 1967" also in The Law of Return: 119-139

Thurs. Oct. 23 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

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

Suggested photo collection: 

Abraham Shulman, The Old Country (New York, 1974)

Video viewing: 

"The Jews of Poland:  Five Cities" (1939) Hornbake, 4th floor, Non-print Media reserves

Suggested videos: 

"The Last Chapter: The Saga of One Thousand Years of Jewish Life in Poland," written by S. L. Schneiderman; produced and directed by Benjamin and Lawrence Rothman; BEn-Lar Productions (1980)

"Image Before My Eyes," adapted, directed, edited by Josh Waletzky; produced by Josh Waletzky and Susan Lazarus; written by Jerome Badanus; YIVO Institute (1991)

Brief paper #2 due today

 

Week 9:

Tues. Oct. 28 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

Suggested Reading: 

Isaac Babel, "1920 Diary" as well as "Reports from Petersberg 1918," "Georgia 1922-1924," and "France 1935" in Complete Works of Isaac Babel (New York, 2002)

A. N. Pirozhkova, At His Side. The Last Years of Isaac Babel (So. Royalton, VT, 1996)

Dovid Bergelson, "Joseph Shorr" in Joachim Neugroschel, ed., The Shtetl:  A Creative Anthology of Jewish Life in Eastern Europe (New York, 1979): 399-450. McKeldin ref. PJ5191.E8 S5

 

Thurs. Oct. 30 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" in Joseph Landis, ed., Three Great Jewish Plays (New York, 1986). McKeldin Reserves; ref. PJ5191.E5T47

Video: 

"Mamele," directed by Joseph Green and Konrad Tom; scenario and production by Konrad Tom; Ergo Media, Inc. (1988). Hornbake, 4th floor, Non-Print Media Reserves

 

Week 10:

Tues. Nov. 4 Emerging from the Old Neighborhood; Space as Nostalgia

Reading: 

Daniel Fuchs, Summer in Williamsburg (New York, 1983; orig. 1961). McKeldin ref. PS3511.U35 S8 (required text)

Extra Readings: 

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

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

Thurs. Nov. 6 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 (Boston, 1989; orig. 1959). McKeldin Reserves. Ref. PS3568.O855G6 1989

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

Suggested Extra Readings: 

Jack Kugelmass, ed. From a Ruined Garden: The Memorial Books of Polish Jewry (Bloomington, 1998). McKeldin ref. DS135.P6 F77

Irving Howe, World of Our Fathers (New York, 1976). McKeldin ref. F128.9.J5 H6. [Note: This work is too long to read for the course, but it is well worth skimming since it is probably the best evocation of aspects of Jewish immigrant life in America.]

 

Holy Places:  Marking the Urban Sacred

Week 11:

Tues. Nov. 11 How Jerusalem became Holy; From Private Chapel to Public Space - The Early Modern Synagogue

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 (three photocopies available)

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.

 

Brief paper #3 due today

Thurs. Nov. 13 The Modern European Synagogue and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

Reading: 

Selections from Carol Herselle Kinsky, Synagogues of Europe:  Architecture, History, Meaning (New York, 1996). Hornbake Library Maryland Room. Ref. NA5450.K75 1996 FOLIO

Suggested Reading:

Antony Polonsky, ed., From Shtetl to Socialism (London; Washington, 1993)

Modern Israel:  Cities Created By Jews

Week 12:

Tues. Nov. 18 The Sacred and the Secular: Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv

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.]

Cheshin, Amir et al., Separate and Unequal. The Inside Story of Israeli Rule in East Jerusalem. (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 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).

Video: 

"Jerusalem: An Occupation Set in Stone?," produced by the Palestinian Housing Rights Movement; videographer, director, and editor Marty Rosenbluth; Arab Film Distribution (1997). Non-Print Media in Hornbake Library, 4th floor

[Topics for the Final Paper must be approved BEFORE the Thanksgiving break!]

Thurs. Nov. 20 Israeli Urban Policy, the Arab Population, and the Religious Question

Week 13:

Tues. Nov. 25 Current Struggles over the Future of Jerusalem; The Dynamics of Jewish Religious Separatism

Reading: 

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").  McKeldin ref. F128.9.J5 M46

Thurs. Nov. 27 Thanksgiving. No class.

Tues. Dec. 2 Kiryas Joel, an American Orthodox Enclave

Reading: 

Mintz, Hasidic People: 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"). McKeldin ref. F128.9.J5 M46

Homework assignment

 

Thurs. Dec. 4 Jerusalem Neighborhoods

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

Final paper due today

 

Week 15:

Tues. Dec. 9 Review of Final Papers

Thurs. Dec. 11 Course Review

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