Brandeis University - Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies

Brandeis University - Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies

NEJS 175a

Spring, 2014

T Th 2-3:30 Rabb 345

Instructor: Professor E. Kellman

Office: Lown 300B

Office hours: Monday and Wednesday 12-1 p.m. and by appointment

E-mail: Office phone: x62129

Jews and Gender in Eastern Europe: Tradition and Transformation

This course examines gender roles in 19th and 20th-century Eastern European Jewish culture through the lens of literature: fiction, poetry, drama and memoir.

The century that preceded the Holocaust was a time of profound social and cultural change in Eastern European Jewish life, impacting education, religious practices, employment and marriage. Young women and men began to scrutinize and question traditional patterns in gender relationships. Some were motivated to address the changes that were taking place in fictional and autobigraphical writings.

In recent years, literary and cultural historians have begun to conduct research on women’s participation in creating a modern Jewish culture in Eastern Europe, and to evaluate its impact on gender dynamics. Women’s writing in Yiddish and Hebrew from the period, long ignored, is being rediscovered and translated. A number of important studies of gender in Eastern European Jewish culture are now complete, and more primary sources are appearing in English translation every year, giving us a rich selection of materials. Course readings are drawn from genres of Yiddish and Hebrew fiction, poetry, drama, memoir and from cultural history.

Requirements for undergraduate students

1. Active participation in class. The course is taught as a seminar. You are expected to do all reading assignments in advance and to come to class prepared to discuss them. Regular attendance is a must.

2. Written work. Undergraduates will write two short papers (5-7 pages) on assigned topics and a 10-page final research paper on a topic related to the subject matter of the course. Research paper topics will be developed in consultation with the professor. You will be expected to submit an abstract of the research paper three weeks before it is due. The abstract should summarize the argument and main points you intend to make in the paper.

Grading

Class participation (including oral presentation of final paper) 30%

Paper #1: 20%

Paper #2: 20%

Research paper: 30%

Graduate students will meet with the professor on a regular basis to discuss readings that supplement the undergraduate syllabus. These readings will be posted on LATTE. In place of the undergraduate writing assignments, graduate students will write one research paper of 20+ pages on a topic to be developed in consultation with the professor.

Reading List - books to buy at the Brandeis Bookstore

Found Treasures - Stories by Yiddish Women Writers edited by Forman, Raicus, Swartz and Wolfe (Second Story Press, 1994)

Beautiful as the Moon edited by Sandra Bark (Warner Books, 2003)

The First Day and Other Stories by Dvora Baron (University of California Press, 2001)

All other readings are found on LATTE. You should download these and print them out for yourself. Please bring all assigned readings to class sessions.

CALENDAR OF READINGS AND ASSIGNMENT DUE DATES

WEEK 1 Introductory Readings

January 14: Introduction to NEJS 175a

January 16: “Gender” in YIVO Encyclopedia (LATTE); “Seductive Secularization” in Gender and Assimilation in Modern Jewish History (Chapter 2), by Paula E. Hyman (LATTE)

WEEK 2 Introductory Readings (continued)

January 21: “A Girl Wasn’t Much” in Daughters of the Shtetl (Chapter 1), by Susan A. Glenn (LATTE)

Men’s and Women’s Formal Education

January 23: Shaul Stampfer: “What Did Knowing Hebrew Mean in Eastern Europe?” in Hebrew in Ashkenaz – a Language in Exile, Lewis Glinert, ed. (LATTE)

In Her Hands by Eliyana Adler (Chapters 1 and 2) (LATTE)

WEEK 3 Women’s Education and Self-education

January 28: In Her Hands by Eliyana Adler (Chapters 5 and 6) (LATTE)

Iris Parush: “Readers in Cameo: Women Readers in Jewish Society of the Nineteenth Century” Prooftexts vol. 14 no. 1 1994 (LATTE)

January 30: Iris Parush: “The Politics of Literacy: Women and Foreign Languages in Jewish Society of Nineteenth Century Eastern Europe” Modern Judaism vol. 15 no. 2 1995 (LATTE)

WEEK 4 The Yiddish Reading Audience

February 4: “Yiddish Literature and the Female Reader” by Shmuel Niger (in Women of the Word); “Prayers in Yiddish and the Religious World of Ashkenazic Women” by Chava Weissler (in Jewish Women in Historical Perspective) (LATTE)

February 6: excerpt from Tsene-rene, examples of tkhines and memoirs describing zogerins; Dvora Baron “Burying the Books” in The First Day; “The Zogerin” by Rokhl Brokhes in Found Treasures

WEEK 5 The Yiddish Reading Audience (continued)

February 11: “Introduction” and “Engendering Audiences” in A Marriage Made in Heaven by Naomi Seidman(LATTE); excerpt from “My Hometown Strikov” by Avrom Unger (LATTE) Nurit Orchan: “Women’s Writing in a Age of Transition, 1881-1914 in From the Shtetl to the Metropolis, Shlomo Berger, ed. (LATTE)

Women’s Memoirs and Autobiographies

February 13: Anna Pavlovna Vygodskaia: The Story of a Life (Introduction and chapter 2) (LATTE); Puah Rakowsky: My Life as a Radical Jewish Woman by (Introduction and Chapter 2) (LATTE)

February 11: Topics for paper #1 will be distributed

WEEK 6 Women’s Memoirs and Autobiographies (continued)

February 25: excerpts from The Promised Land by Mary Antin (LATTE), “Reyzele’s Wedding” by Dora Schulner in Found Treasures; “The Four-Ruble War” by Helen Londynski in Beautiful as the Moon, “The Sack with Pink Stripes” by Rokhl Korn in Beautiful as the Moon

February 27: “Forget-me-not,” “G.S.” and “Esther” in Awakening Lives (LATTE)

February 27: Paper #1 due

WEEK 7 Gender and the Family Singer

March 4: Stories by Esther Kreitman: “A Satin Coat” in Beautiful as the Moon; “The New World” in Found Treasures; “Jewish Nobility” (LATTE)

March 6: excerpts from Of A World That Is No More and The Brothers Ashkenazi by I. J. Singer (LATTE); “Yentl, the Yeshiva Boy” by Isaac Bashevis Singer in Beautiful as the Moon

WEEK 8 Gender Roles in Stories and memoirs by Male Writers

March 11: “The Lowly Status of the Woman” by Mendele Moykher-sforim;

“Passion for Clothes,” “A Woman’s Fury” and “A Lesson in Morality” by I.L. Peretz; “Elul” by Sholem Aleichem (LATTE)

March 13: “Spring” and “In the Boardinghouse” by Dovid Bergelson in Beautiful as the Moon; “Henekh” in Awakening Lives; excerpt from My Mother’s Sabbath Days by Chaim Grade (LATTE)

March 11: Topics for paper #2 will be distributed

WEEK 9 Fiction by Women: Marriage and Family

March 18: “In the Beginning” and “Family” by Dvora Baron in The First Day

March 20: “My Mother’s Dream” by Sarah Hamer Jacklyn in Found Treasures;

“Earth” by Rokhl Korn (LATTE)

March 20: Paper #2 due

WEEK 10 Fiction by Women: Poverty and Social Class

March 25: Stories by Rokhl Brokhes: “Little Abrahams” and “The Neighbor” (LATTE)

“At the Rich Relatives” by Celia Dropkin in Beautiful as the Moon

Fiction by Women: Education/Creativity/Sexuality

March 27: Ellen Kellman: “Feminism and Fiction: Khane Blankshteyn’s Role in Inter-war Vilna” in Polin vol. 18, 2005; “Kaddish” by Dvora Baron in Beautiful as the Moon; “My First Readers” by Rokhl Faygenberg in Beautiful as the Moon

March 27: Abstract for research paper due

WEEK 11 Fiction by Women: Education/Creativity/Sexuality

April 1: “The Veil” by Fradl Shtok in Found Treasures; “At the Mill” by Fradl Shtok in Beautiful as the Moon; “The Shorn Head” by Fradl Shtok (LATTE)

Fiction by Women: Political Change/Generational Conflict

April 3: “A House with Seven Windows” by Kadia Molodowsky in Found Treasures;

“Zlatke” by Miriam Raskin in Found Treasures; “Unspoken Hearts” by Shira Gorshman in Found Treasures

WEEK 12 Yiddish and Hebrew Poetry by Women

April 8: Poetry of Kadia Molodowsky and Rachel Bluvstein (LATTE)

April 10: Rokhl Korn and Anna Margolin (LATTE)

WEEK 13

April 24: Student research presentations

WEEK 14

April 29: Student research presentations

Research paper due

Students with disabilities

If you are a student with a documented disability on record at Brandeis University and wish to have a reasonable accommodation made for you in this class, please see me immediately. Please keep in mind that reasonable accommodations are not provided retroactively.

Academic integrity

Academic integrity is central to the mission of educational excellence at Brandeis

University.Each student is expected to turn in work completed independently, except when assignments specifically authorize collaborative effort.It is not acceptable to use the words or ideas of another person - be it a world-class historian or your classmate - without proper acknowledge-ment of that source.This means that you must use footnotes and quotation marks to indicate the source of any phrases, sentences, paragraphs or ideas found in published volumes, on the internet, or created by another student. Violations of University policies on academic integrity, described in Section Four of Rights and Responsibilities, may result in failure in the course or on the assignment, or in suspension or dismissal from the University.If you are in doubt about the instructions for any assignment in this course, it is your responsibility to ask for clarification.You are not permitted to have anyone other than your professor help you on written assignments outside of class.If you have questions on the type of help you may receive, please ask me

before you seek help from someone.