Modern East European Jewish History,

Transcription

1 COURSE SYLLABUS Modern East European Jewish History, Instructor: Dr. Katherine Lebow Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies Winter Term, 2014 Course level: MA 2 credits Course e-learning site: Office hours by appointment Course Description This course explores transformations in the political, social, and cultural life of East European Jewry in the modern era, starting with the breakup of the early modern Polish state and ending with the Holocaust. When the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was dismembered in the late 18 th century, East European Jews encountered a brave new world: new political arrangements and, increasingly, ideologies, demanded new modes of interaction with the state and surrounding society; global economic transformations wrought havoc with traditional livelihoods, provoking far-reaching changes in everyday life and mentalities; new intellectual vistas suggested alternative secular identities as well as innovative understandings of religiosity and tradition. By the early twentieth century, the communities spread throughout the lands of the former Commonwealth represented the largest and most vibrant concentration of Jewish cultural, political, and intellectual life in the world. Few could imagine or predict the catastrophe that lay ahead. In keeping with current historiographical trends, this course will look beyond the actions and writings of well-known individuals to the Jewish street, considering responses by ordinary men and women to the changes taking place around them. Readings will focus primarily on the geographic areas of Poland and Russia/the Soviet Union, but students are welcome to propose research papers dealing with Jews of other countries in the region. Learning Outcomes By the end of this course, students will be able to: Identify major themes, figures, and events in modern East European Jewish history. 1

2 Interpret primary source documents relating to modern East European Jewish history. Critically assess competing historiographical frameworks for interpreting the modern East European Jewish past. Make arguments about modern East European Jewish history using primary and secondary sources. Apply concepts and questions from the course to other historical periods and regions. Course Requirements Detailed instructions and grading criteria for assignments will be distributed separately. Late assignments will be penalized. (1) Attendance, preparation, and participation (30% of the final grade). Students are expected to attend every class having read, taken notes on, and most of all, actively thought about the issues and questions raised by the readings. There will be various ways for students to demonstrate this in class, including participation discussion, preclass or in-class hand-ins, small group work, and voluntary presentations. (2) Debate, with write-up (20% of the final grade). Once during the semester, each student will present (in a small group) an in-class debate of a given historical/historiographical controversy. A 4-5 pp. 12-point, double-spaced write-up of both sides, concluding with the student s own opinion, is due one week after the debate. (3) Research paper proposal (15% of the final grade). Proposal will briefly lay out the research question, explain how primary sources will be used, and present a preliminary bibliography of primary and secondary sources. (4) Research paper (35% of the final grade) pp., 12-point type, doubled-spaced primary-source-based paper on a topic chosen by the student in consultation with the instructor. COURSE SCHEDULE 13 January. Contexts. In this session, we discuss the spatial, temporal, and intellectual contexts of East European Jewish history from the 18 th through 20 th centuries. On the one hand, we explore the political spaces of East European Jewish life, from the early-modern Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to the Pale of Settlement in tsarist Russia. On the other hand, we consider some of the local contexts of East European Jewish history--village, shtetl, and city. Contexts here also refers to a variety 2

3 of competing frameworks for interpreting the Jewish past: how does our decision to locate Jewish history within a given frame reflect and/or shape our understanding of that history? Bartal, Israel. The Jews of Eastern Europe, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005, pp. 1-37, Haumann, Heiko. A History of East European Jews. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2002, pp. 1-56, Rosman, Moshe. Jewish History across Borders. In Rethinking European Jewish History, edited by Cohen, Jeremy and Moshe Rosman, Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, Hundert, Gershon David. Re(de)fining Modernity in Jewish History. In Rethinking European Jewish History, edited by Cohen, Jeremy and Moshe Rosman, Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, Hyman, Paula E. Does Gender Matter? Locating Women in European Jewish History. In Rethinking European Jewish History, edited by Cohen, Jeremy and Moshe Rosman, Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, January. The Personal Is Political: Religion, Politics, and Identity to the 1860s. Readings for this week explore how Jews grappled with the challenges of Enlightenment, modernity, and the centralizing imperial state in the first half of the nineteenth century. Topics include popular religion; hasidism; haskalah; women s reading practices; and Jewish attitudes to Polish and Russian culture and society. Bartal, Israel. The Jews of Eastern Europe, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005, pp , Hertz, Aleksander. The Jews in Polish Culture. Northwestern University Press, 1988 [selections]. Rubinstein, Hilary L., Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Abraham J. Edelheit and William D. Rubinstein. The Jews in the Modern World: A History since London: Arnold, 2002, Nathans, Benjamin. Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002, Parush, Iris. Reading Jewish Women: Marginality and Modernization in Nineteenth-Century Eastern European Jewish Society. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2004, pp Buber, Martin. The Tales of Rabbi Nachman. Humanities Press International, 1999 [selections]. 3

4 Dawidowicz, Lucy S. The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1996, pp , ; , selections VII: 5, Hundert, Gershon David, (ed.) Essential Papers on Hasidism. New York: New York University Press, 1991, pp February. Brave New World: Crisis and Creativity from the 1860s. This week explores accelerating transformations in Jewish life at the end of the 19 th and beginning of the 20 th centuries. Topics include migration and urbanization; new patterns in gender, education, and family life; the emergence of a vibrant Jewish especially Yiddish mass media, literature, and popular culture; and movements such as Zionism and socialism. Bartal, Israel. The Jews of Eastern Europe, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005, pp , Gitelman, Zvi, (ed.) The Emergence of Modern Jewish Politics: Bundism and Zionism in Eastern Europe. Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 2003 [selections]. Kobrin, Rebecca. The Politics of Philanthropy: Migration, Emigration, and the Transformation of Jewish Communal Governance in Bialystok, In The Jews of Eastern Europe, edited by Greenspoon, Leonard J., Ronald A. Simkins and Brian J. Horowitz, Omaha: Creighton University Press, Steinlauf, Michael C. Cul-de-Sac: The 'Inner Life of Jews' on the Fin-de-Siecle Polish Stage. In Culture Front: Representing Jews in Eastern Europe, edited by Nathans, Benjamin and Gabriella Safran, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, Safran, Gabriella and Steven J. Zipperstein, (eds.) The Worlds of S. An-sky: A Russian Jewish Intellectual at the Turn of the Century. Stanford, VA: Stanford University Press, 2006 [selections]. Dawidowicz, Lucy S. The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967, pp ; ; selections VII: 20-22, Aleichem, Shalom. Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories. New York: Schocken, 1996 [selections]. 4

5 24 February. Revolutionary Times: Jews and (Other) Soviets. This session addresses the tumultuous transformation of Europe during World War I and its aftermath, focusing on the Soviet Jewish experience through Our goal is to understand the wide range of responses to the opportunities and perils posed by revolution and Jewish citizenship in the Soviet state. Gitelman, Zvi. A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001, pp. x-xiii, Rubinstein, Hilary L., Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Abraham J. Edelheit and William D. Rubinstein. The Jews in the Modern World: A History since London: Arnold, 2002, pp Bemporad, Elissa. Behavior Unbecoming a Communist: Jewish Religious Practice in Soviet Minsk. Jewish Social Studies 14, no. 2 (2008): Slezkine, Yuri. The Jewish Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004 [selections]. selections VII: 37-40, 44, 47. Kulbak, Moyshe. The Zelmenyaners: A Family Saga. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013 [selections]. Babel, Nathalie, (ed.) The Complete Works of Isaac Babel. New York: W.W. Norton, 2005 [selections]. 10 March. The Nation-State: Good for the Jews or Bad for the Jews? Between 1918 and 1939, the Second Polish Republic was home to the largest Jewish community in the world. One historian asked whether interwar Poland was good for the Jews or bad for the Jews, concluding that it was both. This session explores the tremendous variety in interwar Polish Jewish experience by class, locality, generation, gender, education, and political persuasion. Mendelsohn, Ezra. Interwar Poland: good for the Jews or bad for the Jews? In The Jews in Poland, edited by Abramsky, Chimen, Maciej Jachimczyk and Antony Polonsky, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, Gitelman, Zvi, (ed.) The Emergence of Modern Jewish Politics: Bundism and Zionism in Eastern Europe. Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 2003 [selections]. selections VII: 45-46, 48. 5

6 Shandler, Jeffrey, (ed.) Awakening Lives: Autobiographies of Jewish Youth in Poland before the Holocaust. New Haven: YIVO and Yale University Press, 2002 [selections]. Redlich, Shimon. Together and Apart in Brzezany: Poles, Jews, and Ukrainians, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002, March. The Holocaust. During the first half of the class, we consider the mechanisms of destruction and the question of local non-jewish populations complicity in the Holocaust. In the second half, we will touch on some ojewish responses to the Holocaust, both personal and communal, including diary-writing, communal organization, cultural life, and armed resistance. Rubinstein, Hilary L., Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Abraham J. Edelheit and William D. Rubinstein. The Jews in the Modern World: A History since London: Arnold, 2002, Redlich, Shimon. Together and Apart in Brzezany: Poles, Jews, and Ukrainians, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002, Engelking, Barbara and Jacek Leociak, (eds.) The Warsaw Ghetto: A Guide to the Perished City. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009 [selections]. Garbarini, Alexandra. Numbered Days: Diaries and the Holocaust. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006, pp Tec, Nechama. Resistance: Jews and Christians Who Defied the Nazi Terror. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, Introduction and Chapter 1. selections XI: 27. The Discussion on Fighting Aims by the Activists of the Bialystok Members of the Dror Movement, February 27, 1943, 6