European Judaism as Minority Diasporic Culture
History 22701/ 32701
Jewish Studies 22700 /32700
Spring Quarter, 2008
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10:30-11:50
Seminar Room, Special Collections, Regenstein Library
Prof. Leora Auslander
Harper Memorial West, 608; 702-7940
Email:
Office Hours (please sign up outside of HMW 608): Thursdays 2:15-4:00
Course Intern: Sara Hume
Email:
Office hours:
This course is both an introduction to European Jewish history from the 18th century to the present and a case study in the history of diasporic, minority cultures. Key topics such as hassidism; the Jewish Enlightenment; emancipation; 19th century reform of religious practice; assimilation; Jewish cultural productions particularly in the visual arts; Zionism; and post-war Jewish life will be analysed as sites of interaction between the polities and cultures within which Jews lived and Jewish practices.
It should be noted that culture is understood here in the both anthropological and aesthetic sense; we will be examining both marriage patterns and painting styles, career choices and synagogue architecture, conversion rates and musical composition. We will grapple with the fundamental questions of individual and collective identity formation and the problem of the labeling of cultural forms. What, for example, is Jewish art? Art produced by Jews? Art that treats a Jewish theme? Art that expresses a “Jewish sensibility”? And, what meanings may be attributed to acts such as conversion? To collective “choices” such as endogamy?
Extensive use will be made of the Harry and Branka Sondheim Jewish Heritage collection, currently on deposit in Special Collections at the University of Chicago. That collection will be supplemented by the Rosenberger Collection also housed there. (Items from the Sondheim collection to be used in class are listed in italics on the syllabus and all start with “IL”.) Items from the Rosenberger will be added as the term progresses.
In addition to teaching an empirical subject (European Jewish History) and a conceptual problem (minority, diasporic culture) this course seeks to provide you with an opportunity to improve both your interpretative and research techniques and your expressive skills. You will be asked to interpret texts and visual materials, to write a short paper on a single source, and a final reflection piece on the theme of the course. You will also be required to present your short papers to the class and you will receive feedback on the quality of your oral as well as written presentations.
Assignments:
Class Presence and Participation:
This course is run as a mixture of lecture and discussion. You MUST come to class, and you must come to class having read the assigned reading and prepared to discuss it. Your final grade will reflect that preparation. If you find speaking in class difficult, come to my office hours to talk about it and we will figure out a strategy.
Each student is entitled to miss one class without explanation. Additional absences will be made up by writing a three page essay on the day’s topic.
Assignment 1:
Choose one item, author/artist, category of object category (i.e. haggadah, facsimile, greeting card, postcard) listed on the syllabus from the Sondheim collection that particularly interests you. You will be asked to both make an oral presentation and write a 5 page paper on the object, author/artist, or category of your choice. The oral presentation should be between 5 and 10 minutes long and should not be read, but rather spoken from an outline. The paper will be due 6 days after the oral presentation (in order to allow you to incorporate comments in your paper).
I will ask everyone to email me their 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices by Friday, April 4.
Those presentations dealing with a particular item or author will generally be done on the day indicated on the syllabus. Three of those dealing with a category of object (or if not enough of these are selected, those dealing with the latest material) will be done on May 15 when Harry Sondheim will be visiting the class.
Assignment 2:
Final Paper. This will be a 10 page essay from a choice of topics on the theme of minority culture. You will not be required to do any additional research, but rather draw on and refer to the course materials. It is expected that there will be no overlap between this essay and the first assignment. The choice of topics will be handed out the last day of class and the essays will be due on Monday, June 9 at 12:00.
Assignment 3:
Postings to chalk. You will be asked to respond to the readings for one class session a week (10 in all). Those postings are to be a minimum of 150 words and a maximum of 250 words. These should be thoughtful and demonstrate that you’ve done the reading, but don’t need to be mini-essays. They are due by 10pm the evening before teach class.
Grading:
Your final grade will be a composite of your participation (quality and quantity), your oral presentation, your postings, and your two written assignments. Grades will be lowered for lateness on papers except when the lateness is a result of illness.
PLEASE NOTE: THE USE OF NOTEBOOK COMPUTERS IN CLASS IS NOT ALLOWED IN THIS COURSE.
Readings:
Books available for purchase at the Seminary Co-op Bookstore and on reserve in Regenstein Library. Additional readings are also on reserve at Regenstein. The course’s chalk site is listed only under JWSC History 22701.
Martin Gilbert, The Routledge Atlas of Jewish History, Sixth edition (London: Routledge, 2003)
Arthur Hertzberg, The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1959; 1997)
Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford U. Press, 1995)
The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln, trans. Marvin Lowenthal (New York:
Schocken, 1977).
Tuesday, April 1. Defining the terms: Minority culture, diasporic culture, exile
Caryn Aviv and David Shneer, “New Jews: The End of the Jewish Diaspora,” in
Contemplate Issue 4 (2007), pp. 26-31.
Shmuel Trigano,"From Individual to Collectivity: The Rebirth of the 'Jewish Nation' in France." In Frances Malino and Bernard Wasserstein, eds.The Jews in Modern France (1985)
Visual materials:
Maps of Jewish populations and movements
Synagogues
Thursday, April 3. Jewish Life in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, 1
The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln, trans. Marvin Lowenthal (New York:
Schocken, 1977), Introduction and pp 1-89, 146-184.
Images: Synagogues, Ritual Objects, Clothing, Domestic Architecture
Maps: Gilbert pp. 20-22, 27, 29, 31-33, 43-47, 49, 54-57
IL 2007.1.54. Barcelona Haggadah 1401 (facsimile)
IL 2007.1.60 Prague Haggadah 1525 (facsimile)
IL2007.1.45. Haggadah, Venice 1609 (facsimile)
Tuesday, April 8. Jewish Life (and its representations) in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, 2
Emily Bilski and Emily Braun, “The Romance of Emancipation,” in their Jewish
Women and their Salons pp. 22-37
Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz, documents from section I
IL 2007.1.66 Passover Haggadah, Darmstadt 1733 (facsimile)
IL 2007.1.68 Passover Haggadah, Ottingen, 1729 (facsimile)
IL 2007.1.69. Passover Haggadah, Copenhagen, 1739 (facsimile)
IL2007.1.43. Haggadah, Amsterdam 1781
IL 2007.1.47. Haggadah Shel Pesach. 1800 (Judeo-German)
IL.2007.1.12. Sefer Minhagim (1775)
IL.2007.1.11. Antonius Margartha, Der Gantz Judisch Glaub, 1530
IL 2007.1.40 Johannes Pfefferkorn, Buchlein der Jude Peicht (1508)
IL.2007.1.27 John Leusden, Philologus Hebraeus, 1657
IL. 2007.1.42. Johannes Buxtorf. Synagoga Judaica. 1661
IL.2007.1.20 Johannes Buxtorf, Schoole der Juden, 1702
IL.2007.1.24.Johannis Buxtorf. Synagogue Judaica
IL 2007.1.35 Johannes Buxtorf, Synagogue Judaica 1728
IL 2007.1.31. Johannis Leusden, Philogus Hebraeus Mixtus, 1682
II.L. 2007.1.3. Paul Christian Kirchner, Juedisches Ceremoniel (1730)
IL 2007 1.4. Paul Christian Kirchner, 1724
IL 2007.1.56. Paul Christian Kirchner,
IL 2007.1.107. Complete set of illustrations from Jüdisches Ceremoniel (1724-1730)
IL 2007.1.6. Leon de Modena, Kerk-Zeeden, Amsterdam 1723
IL 2007.1.7. Johann C. Bodenschatz, Kirchliche Verfassung der Huetigen Juden (1748)
IL 2007.1.8. Ceremonies and Religious Customs of the Known Religions, prints by
Bernard Picart. London 1733
IL2007.1.77-83. Picart engravings.
Thursday, April 10. 18th century Religious and Intellectual Innovation: Hassidism
and the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment)
Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz, II: 7-23 and VIII: 10-12
Simon Dubnow, „The Beginnings: The Baal Shem Tov (Besht) and the Center
in Podolia,“ in Gershon Hundert, ed.Essential Papers on Hasidism
(New York: NYU Press, 1991), pp. 25-57.
Tuesday, April 15. PoliticalEmancipation in the West
Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz, Section III 1-6, 10-16, 17-26.
Maps: Gilbert, p. 58-59
Thursday, April 17. Innovations in Religious Life: The Reform Movement
The class today will debate the Reform Movement. Four positions will be represented and collectively presented:
1. Pro-reform: Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz, Section IV, 1-2, 5, 10
2. Debates within Reform: Peoplehood, Hebrew, Messianism: Mendes-Flohr and
Reinharz, Section IV, 6-8
3. Anti-reform: Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz, Section IV, 3-4, 11, 14, 15
4. Middle ground: Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz, Section IV, 12. 13
Tuesday, April 22. Nineteenth-Century Religious Practice in the Diaspora: Reading
images
Richard I. Cohen, “Self-Image Through Objects: Toward a Social History of Jewish Art Collecting and Jewish Museums,” in Jack Wertheimer ed. The Uses of Tradition: Jewish Continuity in the Modern Era (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1992), pp. 203-242.
Marion Kaplan, “Tradition and Transition—The Acculturation, Assimilation
and Integration of Jews in Imperial Germany—A Gender Analysis,” Leo
Baeck Institute Year book vol 27 (1982), pp. 3-35.
IL 2007.1.2. Prechiere d’un Cuore Israelitai (1852)
IL 2007.1.37 Alexandre Ben Baruch Crehange, La Gemaine Israelite ou le Tze’enan
Moderne (1845)
IL 2007.1.41. Haggadah Illustrata, Trieste (1864)
IL.2007.1.28. Set «Jahres Panorama»New Years Card, 1880
IL 2007.1.46. Simeon Solomon, Photographs of ten Drawings of Jewish Ceremonial,
London, 1862
IL 2007.1.49. Seder Haggadah Livorno. 1904
IL 2007.1.72. Illustrations from box 7
Thursday, April 24. Nineteenth-Century “Jewish Art,” 1: Moritz Oppenheim
(1800-1882)
Ismar Schorsch. "Art as Social History: Oppenheim and the German Jewish Vision of Emancipation." In: Moritz Oppenheim (Catalog of an exhibition at the Israel Museum, Fall, 1983) (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Printing Enterprises, Ltd., 1983).
Annette Weber, "Moritz Daniel Oppenheim and the Rothschilds" in Georg Heuberger, and Anton Merk, eds. Moritz Daniel Oppenheim: Jewish Identity in 19th Century Art (Catalog of an exhibition at the Jüdisches Museum, Frankfurt, December 16 1999-April 2, 2000). Frankfurt: Wienand Verlag, Jüdisches Museum, 1999).
IL.2007.1.9 Moritz Oppenheim, Bilder aus dem altjudischen Familienleben (1882)
IL.2007.1.10 Moritz Oppenheim, Bilder aus dem altjudischen Familienleben
Il. 2007.1.23 Moritz Oppenheim, Tafereelen uit het oud-Joodsche FAmilieleven
IL 2007.1.72.56. Succot, Magazine from Oppenheim
IL 2007.1.72.55 Condolences, Magazine from Oppenheim
IL 2007.1.72.51 German pring based on Oppenheim
IL 2007.1.72.23-30. Oppenheim ephemera.
IL 2007.1.85. Oppenheim portrait
IL 2007.1.72 – Box 7 Oppenheim illustrations from newspapers and prints
IL 2007.1.157 Families and Feasts: Paintings by Oppenheim and Kaufmann. Exhibition
catalogue
Tuesday, April 29. Nineteenth-Century“Jewish Art” 2: Alphonse Lévy (1843-1918)
Tal Gozani, “Images and Jewish Identity: Three Jewish Artists in Nineteenth-Century France,” Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought2001.
IL 2007.1.33. Alphonse Lévy. Scènes Famliales Juives 1902
IL 2007.1.48. Alphonse Lévy, La Vie Juive 1886.
IL 2007.1. 88 Alphonse Lévy, “Schochet,“ drawing
IL 2007.1.89 Alphonse Lévy, “Rabbi with Student Studying Parsha,”lithograph
Il 2007.1.90 Alphonse Lévy, “Mezuzah with husband and wife,” lithograph
Il 2007.1.94 Alphonse Lévy, “Lady with chicken,”drawing.
IL2007.1.99 Alphonse Lévy, “Shidduch,”lithograph.
Thursday, May 1. Post-Emancipation French Jewry. From the Alliance Israelite
to The Dreyfus Affair
Paula E. Hyman, The Jews of Modern France, chs. 5 and 6.
Paula Hyman, “The Dreyfus Affair: The Visual and the Historical,” Journal of Modern History 61 (March 1989): 88-109.
Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz, VII: 8-10, 16, 18, 23
Images:The Dreyfus Affair Commodified: Press, Postcards, board games,
Caricatures. Materials from the Sondheim and Rosenberger Collections
Maps: Gilbert, p. 61
IL 2007.1.44. Leopold von Riter, Contes Juifs: Récits et Famille 1888
IL 2007.1.72.14. 1864 French newspaper clipping
IL 2007.72.10 1885. Illustration of Passover from Henri Levy Painting.
IL 2007.72.53. Mid 19th century French Synagogue.
Tuesday, May 6. Zionism
Each student (alone or with one or more colleagues, depending on numbers enrolled) will be assigned one of the sections (around 50pp) of Arthur Hertzberg, The Zionist Idea. Each group will write a summary of the author’s position on a set of key issues and post the position papers on the course discussion board. These papers will form the basis for class discussion.
Michael Berkowitz, “Art in Zionist Popular Culture and Jewish National Self-
Consciousness, 1897-1914,”Studies in Contemporary Jewry 6, pp. 17-42.
DS135.G332J490 1996
IL.2007.1.30 Juda, engravings by E.M. Lilien, Berlin 1910
IL 2007.1.32. The New Art of an Ancient People: The Work of E.M. Lilien 1906
Maps: Gilbert, pp. 61-63; 76-77; 85-88; 105-10
Thursday, May 8. Labor and the Left
Robert S. Wistrich,”Rosa Luxemburg, the Internationalist” and “Bernard
Lazare, Dreyfusard Prophet,” chs. 4 and 7 in his Revolutionary Jews from
Marx to Trotsky (London: George Harrap, 1976), pp. 77-92 and 133-152.
Israel Getzler, „A Grandson of the Haskalah,“ ch. 10 in Ezra Mendelsohn, ed.
Essential Papers on Jews and the Left, (New York: NYU Press, 1977), pp.
275-299.
Il. 2007.1.29. Morris Rosenfeld, Lieder des Ghetto. Illustrations E.M. Lilien, 1902
IL 2007.1.1 E.M. Lilien, Farshvundene Velt (1906)
IL 20071.30. Juda, E.M. Lilien, 1910
Tuesday, May 13. The “Jewish Press” and the “ Jewish Book”
David A. Brenner, Marketing Identities: the Invention of Jewish Ethnicity in Ost
und West, Introduction and ch. 1.
Emily Bilski and Emily Braun, “The Literary Salons of the Belle Epoque” in
their Jewish Women and their Salons pp. 50-83.
Justine Howes, and Pauline Paucker, “German Jews and the Graphic
Arts,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 34 (1989), pp. 443-473.
IL.2007.1.26 Sacher-Masoch, Judisches Leben in Wort und Bild, 1891
IL.2007.1.21. Lovis Corinth, Das Buch Judith 1908
IL 2007.1.22. Das Buch Esther. Reproductions from Rembrandt, 1923
IL 2007.1.5. Abel Pann Traenen Krug 1926
IL 2007.1.57. D. Joseph S. Minden and Dr. Abraham W. Kodut, The Holy Speech”(1903) text in Yiddish and English.
IL 2007.1.17 Ben Shahn. Haggadah shel Pessah, 1966
IL 2007.1.58. Set of the Diskin Orphan Home of Israel Haggadahs.
Thursday, May 15. Arthur Szyk
Harry Sondheim visits the class
Joseph P. Ansell, “Art against Prejudice: Arthur Szyk's Statute of Kalisz,”
The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, Vol. 14. (Autumn, 1989), pp.
46-63.
Arthur Szyk, Megillat Esther (1925/26)
IL 2007. 1. 28 Arthur Szyk, Piesn (1924)
IL 2007 1.34. Arthur Szyk, The Statue of Kalisz (1927)
Il 2007.1. 52. Arthur Szyk, Ink and Blood: A book of Drawings (1946)
Tuesday, May 20. The Complexities of Jewish Modernism: S. An-sky
Gabriella Safran and Steven Zipperstein, eds. The Worlds of S. An-sky: A Russian Jewish Intellectual at the Turn of the Century (Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture, 2007) selection
Film: S. Ansky’s The Dybbuk
Thursday, May 22. Jewish and European from the turn of the century to the 1930s:
Creolization? Synchretism? Universalism?
Kenneth E. Silver, “Jewish Artists in Paris, 1905-1945,” in Kenneth Silver
and Romy Golan, eds. The Circle of Montparnasse: Jewish Artists in Paris,
1905-1945. Exhibition of the Jewish Museum, (NY: The Jewish Museum and
Universe Books, 1985), 13-59.
N6850.S550 1985
Leora Auslander, “’Jewish Taste’? Jews, and the aesthetics of everyday life in Paris and Berlin, 1933-1942,” in Rudy Koshar, ed. Histories of Leisure (Oxford: Berg Press, 2002), pp. 299-318.
Ismar Schorsch, “German Judaism: From Confession to Culture.” In Die Juden im Nationalsozialistischen Deutschland, 1933-1943, ed. Arnold Paucker, pp. 67-73. Tübingen: J.c.b. Mohr, 1986., pp. 67-73.
Il 2007.1.50 Lamm’s Pracht Haggadah, Berlin, 1923
IL 2007.1.63. Die Pesach Haggadah Vienna 1928
IL 2007.1.98 Late 19th and early 20th century Postcards
IL2007.1.104 New Year’s cards, c. 1900
IL2007.1.101. Jakob Steinhardt (1897-1968) “Havdalah,”1921, Drypoint (in exhibit)
Tuesday, May 27. “Representing” the Shoah in words and images
Jack Kugelmass and Jonathan Boyarin, From a Ruined Garden, Introduction (pp. 1-48) and chapter on “Lifeways” (pp. 119-142)
Il 2007.1. 52. Arthur Szyk, “Ink and Blood: A book of Drawings”1946.
Thursday May 29. Jews in Postwar Germany (1945-1989) and France (1945-1962):
The Dilemma of “Home”
Jean Améry, “How Much Home Does a Person Need?” in his At the Mind’s
Limits trans. Sidney Rosenfeld and Stella P. Rosenfeld (Bloomington: Indiana
Univ. Press, 1980), pp. 41-62.
Alain Finkielkraut, The Imaginary Jew, trans. Kevin O’Neill and David
Suchoff, (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1980), ch. 1.
Leora Auslander, “Coming Home? Jews in Postwar Paris,” Journal of Contemporary History Vol. 40, No. 2(2005): 237-259.
Maps: Gilbert: 109-110, 123-125, 130, 133-137
Tuesday June 3. Recent Pasts and Near Futures: Post-Unification Germany
(1989…) and Post-Colonial France (1962…)
James E. Young, “Against Redemption: The Arts of Countermemory in Germany Today,” in Peter Homans, ed. Symbolic Loss: The Ambiguity of Mourning and Memory at Century’s end (University press of Virginia, 2000)
Shelley Hornstein, “Invisible Topographies: Looking for the Mémorial de la
deportation in Paris,” in Shelley Hornstein and Florence Jacobowitz, eds.
Image and Remembrance: Representation and the Holocaust (Bloomington:
Indiana Univ. Press, 2003), pp. 305-323.
Diana Pinto, “The Third Pillar? Toward a European Jewish Identity,”
Contemplations, Issue 4 (2007), pp. 15-24.
Kimberly Arkin, chalala article
Film: "La Petite Jerusalem" (2004)
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