Graduate Certificate in Judaic and Israel Studies

This course will examine the meaning and scope of cultural heritage protection, what that means in practice and what is the implication of such protection for people from around the world, including indigenous and minority groups. What are the legal tools at our disposal to protect cultural heritage? Is cultural heritage a human rights issue?

We also shall focus on Jewish approaches towards cultural heritage and memorialization, especially in the post-Holocaust context.

We shall critically examine existing international and regional avenues of cultural heritage protection and account for cultural heritage protection in conflict zones (including as a potential avenue for conciliation between opposing groups). Further we shall consider means of memorialization and how memorialization efforts and protecting cultural heritage can assist to prevent mass atrocities and protect cultural groups from violence and cultural evisceration.

Student work shall center on considering the ways and means human rights practitioners apply cultural heritage protection in different contexts. 

This course is a prerequisite prior to taking the Special Topics course on Entrepreneurship and Holocaust Memorialization

We will explore Israeli society and its historical roots principally by looking into its vibrant scene of documentary filmmaking. Israeli society has rapidly developed from a highly consolidated socialistic society into a fractured one, dominated by the logic of capitalism. Within just a few decades, multiple social fissures have emerged, revealing underlying ethnic, religious, and sectorial tensions. These occur mainly between Arabs and Jews, Ashkenazi and Mizrachi Jews, and secular and religious Israeli Jews. They force Israelis to re-think their national identity and their understanding of the Zionist idea about a national home for the Jewish People. As such, documentary films serve as a building block in societies' collective memory: they allow establishing shared narratives about the past as well as challenging such narratives and push for a change. By dissecting selected Israeli documentaries and talking to their creators, we will dive into key elements in the "Israeliness": Jewish identity, Zionism, the Holocaust, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Kibbutz, the Israeli army, LGBT rights, and gender equality. 

Graduate students also will have to submit a scholarly paper on a topic relevant to the course.

This course will explore the history, memories and representations of the Holocaust, the attempted annihilation of European Jews (that also included the murderous persecution of other groups like Roma, Sinti and racial and political opponents by the Third Reich in Germany, 1933-1945). We will discuss the perspectives of survivors, perpetrators, witnesses, historians, and ourselves as students, while seeking to understand the nature of this event and its significance.

We will consider throughout the course the potential ways and means of avoiding mass atrocity events such as a genocide like the Holocaust. The goal here is to learn from the poast and maintain awareness in the present to recognize the factors indicating a mass atrocity event. Further, we will sharpen our understanding of what genocide actually means and implies, and consider for the ensuing results of the Holocaust, specifically the creation of binding human rights and humanitarian instruments that continue to impact and direct state action and policy to this day as well as allow for approaches towards transitional justice following mass atrocity events.

NOTE: JUS/HRT 562 - Cultural Heritage Protection and Human Rights is a pre-requisite for this course. 

Focusing on social entrepreneurship, the course teaches about the ways and means of memorialization. Students connect with a network of researchers and other practitioners in the memory field,  all with different backgrounds and experiences offering opinions and insights. Students work in groups to then collaborate on an actual memory project.

Explores narratives that construct the Other, the foreigner, and the outsider; discusses the politics of racism, sexism and exclusion using texts from various fields.

Examines the nature and function of minority discourses in German culture and literature.

This course will examine the history of women in Europe for the past several centuries, exploring women's participation in social and family labor systems as well as religious, political and cultural life.  We will explore how women simultaneously participated in and coped with historical processes such as changing religious and political systems, commercialization and industrialization, and state formation.  We will examine major areas of human activity--economic, political, cultural, social, religious, intellectual, to see how they shaped and were in turn shaped by women's activities and women's experiences.  We will consider what this has implied for women's autonomy, choices, and power.

The development and exchange of scholarly information, usually in a small group setting. The scope of work shall consist of research by course registrants, with the exchange of the results of such research through discussion, reports, and/or papers.

This course covers the fundamentals of Standard Literary or Imperial Aramaic grammar, deals with the place of Aramaic within the Semitic languages, and introduces the student to texts in a few Aramaic dialects. The course emphasizes grammar and reading comprehension.

*This course is not offered every year.

509A is the prerequisite course to 509B.

Biblical Hebrew introduces students to the basic grammar and syntax of the Hebrew Bible with an emphasis on understanding the function and formation of the verb, the use of the noun, and the acquisition of basic vocabulary. The overall goal of the course is to enable students to translate narrative prose in the Hebrew Bible. Students will also gain some experience in translating poetic texts.

This course is not offered every year.

This course in the historiography of the Arab Israeli Conflict will engage in a comparative analysis of the various Israeli approaches with those of their Palestinian counterparts.  The course analyzes what has been learned about history, the writing of history, and how that informs the various approaches to the understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Graduate level requirements include an extended classroom presentation and a longer, more sophisticated term paper. Graduate students will meet with the instructor prior to their presentation and prior to completing the term paper, and will provide leadership in the classroom as appropriate to their University standing.

This course presents an examination of the origins and early evolution of images of the afterlife among the ancient peoples of the Mediterranean basin and Near East.  The course will focus on ancient Israelite, biblical, and early Jewish and Christian images.  Later developments of these images within Western religions will also be discussed.  Graduate-level requirements include more depth methodological issues related to the study of heaven and afterlife motifs as they appear in the cultures of the Mediterranean Basin in antiquity. Graduate students will meet as a group with the professor six times during the course of the semester. Moreover, each graduate student will meet individually with the professor four times during the semester to develop and write a 20-page term paper on a topic proposed by the student.

Surveys the ideology, symbolism, and major themes of Jewish mysticism as evidenced in several prominent mystical texts. The core of this course will be reading the texts in English translation and the development of skills in reading and understanding a Jewish mystical text.  Graduate-level requirements include a substantial research paper.

The characteristic features of Hebrew poetry. The literary development of these writings and their function in the Israelite cult. Examples of biblical poetry outside the book of Psalms also considered.  Graduate-level requirements include additional readings and a substantial research paper.

Graduate-level requirements include meeting as a group, in advance (date to be determined) to organize the presentation of their papers.  Each student will be assigned a "reviewer."

This course is an intensive investigation of the life of the ancient Israelite woman.  It presents a multidisciplinary approach toward reconstructing the social, economic, religious and political life of women in Iron Age Israel.  Through readings and class discussion, students will explore the ways in which women contributed to their society throughout the eras of the Judges and of the United and Divided Monarchies (1200-587 BCE).

Because women traditionally have been undervalued and marginalized, until recently little attention was devoted to this vitally important and stimulating topic.  In consequence, students will be challenged to utilize multiple sources in their reconstruction of the lives of Israelite women.  The sources used in this class will include (but not be limited to) archaeological, historical and art historical data, the witness of the Hebrew Bible and other pertinent texts, and anthropological and ethnographic studies of the roles of women in pre-industrial and Middle eastern societies.

This course explores themes that include women in Judaism, women in Zionism, women in Yishuv, and women in the Palmah generation.  Areas receiving special attention include women in Israeli law, religion, the army and the Kibbutz.  Graduate-level requirements include a more detailed research paper.

553A is the prerequisite course for 553B.

Advanced instruction in Biblical and/or Rabbinic Hebrew language and literature. Graduate-level requirements include additional meeting times and additional reading and writing assignments.

*This course is not offered every year.

The Inquisition in Spanish, European, & ethnic history: its bureaucracy and procedures; its festivities, its victims, New and Old Christians; and witches.  Social, economic, and demographic context.  Graduate-level requirements include graduate students studying more deeply the economic, social and demographic context of the Inquisition, through more scholarly reading, discussion and writing.

Qualified students work on an individual basis with professors who have agreed to supervise such work. Graduate students doing independent work which cannot be classified as actual research will register for credit under course number 599, 699, or 799.

This course is designed to introduce graduate students to the field of Judaic Studies in general, and to Jewish civilization throughout the ages. Numerous approaches to Judaic Studies, including historical, archaeological, philological, literary, and social scientific will be explored. Students will become familiar with influential ideas and theoretical approaches, both past and present.  They will develop skills in creative and critical thinking. By the end of the semester, students will have an appreciation for the breadth and interdisciplinary nature of the field, and be able to undertake analysis of it at the graduate level.

Graduate-level requirements include meeting as a group, in advance (date to be determined) to organize the presentation of their papers.  Each student will be assigned a "reviewer."

The course objectives are (1) to introduce students to the world of the Jewish communities in Islamic countries and (2) to acquaint students with the culture and history of Jewish communities of the Islamic world and the characteristics of Middle Eastern and North African Judaism. Graduate-level requirements include biography review of 10-15 pages.

Identical to MENA 556.

This course introduces Middle Eastern women's issues through a critical reading of literary works written by women in the major languages of the Near East (Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Turkish) that are available in translation. Readings include poetry, short stories, and novels all analyzed within their social context.  Graduate-level requirements include additional reading from the suggested bibliography, longer written papers, an oral presentation and bi-weekly meeting with instructor. Theoretical issues will be addressed and presented in additional material.

Origins of Zionism, and Palestinian and other Arab nationalisms from the nineteenth century and the post-1948 Arab-Israel state conflict in the Cold War era.  Graduate-level requirements include additional readings and an extensive research paper.

Middle Eastern society viewed from the perspective of women. Examines the extent to which formal definitions of women's nature and roles coincide with women's self-images and activities.  Graduate-level requirements include an additional paper.