HST405E/505E Colloquium on East European Jewish History: The Shtetl Prof. Natan Meir Fall 2012

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1 HST405E/505E Colloquium on East European Jewish History: The Shtetl Prof. Natan Meir Fall 2012 Office: 315 Neuberger Hall Office hours: Wed. 1-3 PM and by appointment Eastern Europe was one of the great centers of Jewish civilization in the early modern and modern periods. This reading colloquium explores the society that Jews created, a world unto itself but also closely interlinked with the surrounding Slavic and Christian society. Topics include the structure of Jewish community, Jewish religious culture, socioeconomic patterns, government policies, antisemitism, individual and corporate identity, and cultural and literary developments from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. The primary geopolitical context will be the Russian Empire, though we will start in the early modern Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and end with a brief glance at Jewish life in independent Poland and the Soviet Union. This course is the prerequisite for the subsequent research seminar on the history of the shtetl (HST407/507E), offered in the Spring term. This term, we will read more generally about the Jewish experience in Eastern Europe, though the primary sources will often relate to life in the shtetl, and you will be asked to begin thinking about a possible shtetl-related research topic to develop into a paper in Winter term. Although this colloquium can be taken as an independent course, history majors who take both it and the following 407 seminar on the shtetl will fulfill their two-seminar requirement. History majors who have taken this reading colloquium will have priority for enrollment in the 407 seminar on the shtetl. Objectives In this first term of the two-term sequence, you will be introduced to the scholarly literature on the history of East European Jews, as well as some representative primary sources. By the end of the term, you will: - Be able to identify some of the major historiographical issues in the field; - Be acquainted with the primary source base available to scholars of the field; - Understand some of the primary challenges facing historians active in the field; - Be able to identify the thesis and ancillary arguments of a monograph, scholarly article, or chapter in an edited volume; 1

2 - Have identified several subject areas of interest which you will explore further in the Winter term as possible research paper topics. Texts (available at Portland State Bookstore and Campus Bookstore) Israel Bartal, T he Jews of Eastern Europe, (2005), also available on Google ebooks ChaeRan Y. Freeze, Jewish Marriage and Divorce in Imperial Russia (2002) The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, ed. Gershon Hundert (2007): Hundreds of fascinating articles by the leading scholars of the field, including some entries on primary topics of interest (e.g., Russian Empire ; Yiddish language ; Poland before 1795 ). We will read extensively in it, and I encourage you to browse through it and make use of the articles, bibliographies, multimedia, and other resources. URL: All other secondary readings, and all primary sources, will be available on D2L. Requirements 1. Attendance: The success of this class depends on the collective responsibility and effort of all students. You are expected to be present at every class session, and to participate actively in discussion. This grade also includes at least one one-on-one meeting with me during office hours or at another mutually agreed upon time. (15%) 2. Historian s journal: This is an opportunity for you to discuss the assigned secondary readings and identify the major issues and ideas that each reading raises (see separate assignment handout on D2L). You must upload it to D2L by noon every Tuesday (except for the first and last weeks of term, and the week the paper is due), and will be graded on it. Length: about 2 pp. per week. (8 weeks x 3% = 24%) 3. Discussion leading: For eight out of the ten class sessions, students will lead class discussion for at least the first half of each class. You will work in pairs and must meet beforehand in order to plan your strategy. This is not as easy as it seems! You cannot just throw out a few ideas and expect your fellow students to run with them. You must prepare a set of questions and topics that will generate discussion, and be prepared to keep discussion going for a good chunk of class time. You should plan to focus your discussion on the primary sources but include the secondary readings as well. You must submit an outline at least one day before class. (10%; graded individually) 4. Analysis of scholarly journal article ( words): You will find an article (or chapter in an edited volume) of interest to you and write a sustained analysis of it. See separate assignment handout on D2L. Due 11/19 at 5:00 pm. (30%) 5. Preliminary annotated bibliography: You will compile a preliminary bibliography, with annotations, of secondary works relating to a theme that you identify as a possible research paper topic. Ideally the bibliography will include at least 5 books and 5 articles. It is highly 2

3 recommended that you meet with me to discuss your research interests and possible paper topics. Due 11/28 at 5:00 pm. (20%) NOTE: Page totals are calculated assuming 1-inch margins, 12-point font, and double spacing. Late work will be marked down one grade step per day. Graduate Students Graduate students are required to do all of the above assignments except for the historian s journal. You will hand in three article analyses over the course of the term (one in October and two in November, or vice versa), each one worth 20%. Your bibliography will be worth 15%. Overview 9/25 1. Intro to course 10/2 2. Intro to Jewish history / The early modern Polish context 10/9 3. New religious and cultural currents 10/16 4. The Jews and the Russian state 10/23 5. Jewish economic patterns; community and traditional life 10/30 6. Integration, acculturation, assimilation 11/6 7. Antisemitism and Jewish-Christian relations 11/13 8. Jewish culture 11/20 9. Jewish politics 11/ The Soviet Union to 1939; Interwar Poland and Lithuania 3

4 WEEK 2: Introduction to Jewish history The early modern Polish context 1. Extended Privilege Granted to the Jews of Great Poland (1453) 2. Benjamin Slonik, The Order of Women's Commandments (Seder Mitzvot Nashim) (1577) (both sources from workshop on Early Modern Jewries, Wesleyan University, 2004) Essential reading: before you do anything else, read: Benjamin Nathans, The Jews, in The Cambridge History of Russia (2006), vol. II: Imperial Russia, , part III: Non-Russian Nationalities. Available online through Cambridge Histories Online. Medieval antecedents; Judaism as a religion and way of life L. Gartner, The Heritage of Medieval Judaism, in idem, The History of the Jews in Modern Times, C. Roth, The Success of the Medieval Jewish Ideal, in L. Schwarz, ed., Great Ages and Ideas of the Jewish People (New York, 1956) The field of Jewish history; the historiography of East European Jewish history M. Rosman, Some a priori Issues in Jewish Historiography in idem, How Jewish Is Jewish History? (Oxford and Portland, 2007), pp S. Kassow, Historiography: An Overview in The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (YEJEE) The Jews in early modern Poland Bartal, chaps. 1-2 (pp ) 4

5 M. Rosman, Poland: Poland before 1795, in YEJEE G. Hundert, "Some Basic Characteristics of the Jewish Experience in Poland," POLIN, vol. 1, (1986), pp Useful if you have no knowledge of Judaism Judaism in The Encyclopedia of Religion, 2 nd ed. (MacMillan Reference), VII: Available in library or as electronic resource through catalog. 5

6 WEEK 3: New religious and cultural currents 1. The Ba al Shem Tov and Early Hasidism: How the Maggid Was Converted and the parable of the prince (late 18 th cent.) in Heritage: Civilization and the Jews: Source Reader, ed. Hallo, Ruderman, and Stanislawski (NY 1984), pp Moses Leib Lilienblum, The Sins of My Youth (1873) (excerpts), in The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe, ed. Lucy Dawidowicz (Syracuse, 1996), pp Judah Leib Gordon, An Entry in My Diary (ca. 1870s) in The Golden Tradition, pp Bartal, chaps. 4 and 8 Hasidism D. Assaf, Hasidism: Historical Overview and J. Dan, Hasidism: Teachings and Literature in YEJEE S. Dubnow, History of the Jews in Russia and Poland (Philadelphia, 1916), vol. I: M. Rosman, Miedzyboz and Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov and S. Ettinger, The Hasidic Movement: Reality and Ideals in G. Hundert, ed., Essential Papers on Hasidism: Origins to Present (New York, 1991), pp Misnagdim A. Nadler, Misnagdim in YEJEE Haskalah I. Etkes, Haskalah in YEJEE M. Stanislawski, Tsar Nicholas I and the Jews: The Transformation of Jewish Society in Russia, (Philadelphia, 1983), chaps. 3 and 4: Beginnings of the Russian Haskalah and Enlightenment of the Jews (49-122) 6

7 WEEK 4: The Jews and the Russian state 1. Alexander I, Statutes Concerning the Organization of Jews (1804) in The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History, ed. Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, 3 rd edition (2011) 2. Nicholas I, Delineation of the Pale of Settlement (1835) in The Jew in the Modern World Bartal, chaps. 5 and 9: Russia and the Jews and The Days of Springtime (pp ; ) M. Stanislawski, Russian Empire in YEJEE Stanislawski, Tsar Nicholas I, chaps. 1-2: Conscription of the Jews and Political Offensive (pp ) C. Freeze, Jewish Marriage and Divorce in Imperial Russia (Hanover, NH, 2002), chap. 2: Bringing Order to the Jewish Family (pp ) J. D. Klier, The Concept of Jewish Emancipation in a Russian Context, in Crisp and Edmondson, eds., Civil Rights in Imperial Russia (New York: Oxford, 1989), WEEK 5: Jewish economic patterns; community and traditional life 1. Excerpt from Yekhezkel Kotik, Journey to a Nineteenth-Century Shtetl: The Memoirs of Yekhezkel Kotik, David Assaf, trans. and ann. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2002). Originally published Tkhines (Yiddish-language women s devotional prayers) Bartal, chap. 3: Towns and Cities: Society and Economy, (pp ) A. Teller, Economic Life in YEJEE 7

8 Freeze, Jewish Marriage and Divorce, chap. 1: Marriage: Creating the Jewish Family (pp ) M. Stanislawski, Tsar Nicholas I, chaps. 5-6: Metamorphoses of Authority and Economic Transformations (pp ) A. Ain, Swislocz: Portrait of a Jewish Community in Eastern Europe, in D. Dash Moore, ed., East European Jews in Two Worlds: Studies from the YIVO Annual (Evanston, Ill., and New York, 1990), pp WEEK 6: Integration, acculturation, assimilation 1. O. Rabinowich, Russian Must Be Our Mother Tongue (1861) in The Jew in the Modern World 2. Society for the Promotion of Culture Among the Jews, Program (1864) in The Jew in the Modern World 3. Excerpt from Pauline Wengeroff, Memoirs of a Grandmother ( ) Bartal, chap. 7: Brotherhood and Disillusionment: Jews and Poles in the Nineteenth Century (pp ) T. Endelman, Assimilation in YEJEE B. Horowitz, Society for the Promotion of Culture among the Jews of Russia in YEJEE B. Nathans, Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2002), chap. 6: The University as Melting Pot? (pp ) H. Murav, Identity Theft: The Jew in Imperial Russia and the Case of Avraam Uri Kovner (Stanford, 2003), Introduction and chap. 3: Kovner and Russophone Literature (pp. 1-10, 59-82) 8

9 WEEK 7: Antisemitism and Jewish-Christian relations 1. S. D. Urusov Explains Russian Antisemitism (1907), in Major Problems in the History of Imperial Russia, ed. James Cracraft (1994), Hayyim Nahman Bialik, In the City of Slaughter (1904), in The Literature of Destruction: Jewish Responses to Catastrophe, ed. David Roskies (1989) 3. Pogrom songs, in The Literature of Destruction Bartal, chaps : The Jew is Coming! : Anti-Semitism from Right and from Left and Storms in the South, (pp ) Klier, The Pogrom Paradigm in Russian History, in Klier and Lambroza, eds., Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History (Cambridge, 1992), pp Nathans, Beyond the Pale, chap. 7: A Silent Pogrom (pp ) N. Meir, Jews, Ukrainians, and Russians in Kiev: Intergroup Relations in Late Imperial Associational Life, Slavic Review 65, no. 3 (Autumn 2006): WEEK 8: Jewish culture 1. S.Y. Abramovich (Mendele Moykher Sforim), Fishke the Lame (1888) (excerpts), in Selected Works of Mendele Moykher-Sforim, ed. Marvin Zuckerman, Gerald Stillman, and Marion Herbst (1991). 2. Y.L. Peretz, The Dead Town (1895), in A Treasury of Yiddish Stories 3. Sholem Aleichem, Hodel (1904) in A Treasury of Yiddish Stories, ed. Irving Howe (1990) 4. Hersh Nomberg, Master of a Literary Generation (Y.L. Peretz), in The Golden Tradition, A. Holtzman, Hebrew Literature in YEJEE D. Katz, Yiddish in the Twentieth Century in YEJEE M. Krutikov, Yiddish Literature After 1800 in YEJEE B. Harshav, The Meaning of Yiddish (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1990), chap. 6: The Historical Perspective of Modern Yiddish Literature (pp ) 9

10 R. Wisse, I. L. Peretz and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture (Seattle, 1991), Introduction and chap. 1 (xiii-xvii, 3-35) D. Roskies, S. Ansky and the Paradigm of Return, in J. Wertheimer, ed., The Uses of Tradition: Jewish Continuity in the Modern Era (New York and Cambridge, Mass., 1992),

11 WEEK 9: Jewish politics 1. Dubnow, Cultural Autonomy in The Jew in the Modern World 2. Bund, Decisions on the Nationality Question in The Jew in the Modern World 3. Excerpts from Puah Rakovsky, My Life as a Radical Jewish Woman: Memoirs of a Zionist Feminist in Poland, ed. P. Hyman, trans. B. Harshav with P. Hyman (2002) Bartal, chaps and Conclusion: Between Two Extremes: Radicalism and Orthodoxy and The Conservative Alliance: Galicia under Emperor Franz Josef E. Lederhendler, The Road to Modern Jewish Politics (Oxford, 1989), chaps. 4-5: A Dual Role: Maskilim and the Russian State and Toward Political Reconstruction: Russian Maskilim and the Modernization of Jewish Politics (pp ) Freeze, Jewish Marriage and Divorce, chap. 5 J. Frankel, Jewish Politics and the Russian Revolution of 1905 in idem, Crisis, Revolution, and Russian Jews (Cambridge, 2009). WEEK 10: The Soviet Union to 1939; Interwar Poland 1. Julien Tuwim, We, Polish Jews in The Jew in the Modern World, Isaak Babel, short story TBA 3. Excerpt from Lucy Dawidowicz, From That Place and Time: A Memoir, (1989) 11

12 Z. Gitelman, A Century of Ambivalence, 2 nd ed. (Bloomington, 2001), chaps. 2-3 (pp ) D. Shneer, Yiddish and the Creation of Soviet Jewish Culture, (New York, 2004), chap. 2 M. Altshuler, Factors in the Process of Assimilation within Soviet Jewry, , in B. Vago, ed., Jewish Assimilation in Modern Times (Boulder, 1981), pp E. Mendelsohn, The Jews of East Central Europe Between the World Wars (Bloomington, 1983), chap. 1: Poland (pp ) S. Kassow, Community and Identity in the Interwar Shtetl in I. Gutman et al., eds., The Jews of Poland between Two World Wars (Hanover, NH, 1989), pp