HIST363

Description

This seminar will explore modern Jewish political thought and culture, focusing on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will investigate how questions of nationalism, empire, polity, autonomy, sovereignty, demography, minority rights, gender, dissent, and crisis, among others, played out for Jews in Europe, North America, the Middle East, and beyond. How did Jews hope to solve the "Jewish Question"-that is, the debate that emerged in the nineteenth century over the place of Jews in modern society? How did crisis and exigency transform Jewish political strategy and outlook? How have Jews grappled with both power and powerlessness? How have perspectives on race and class informed Jewish political thought and activism? What role has Judaism-that is Jewish religion-played in the formation of modern Jewish politics? This course will emphasize the reading of primary sources, including both the classic texts of the modern Jewish political tradition and lesser-known documents drawn from the archives.