Elementary Hebrew

Hebrew 1B

MTWTF 10-11:00am, 252 Barrows

Professor Chava Boyarin

In this course we'll listen to Hebrew conversations, watch movies, read short newspaper articles designated for new learners, as well as review grammar, and study the Future tense. Pre-requisite: Heb.1a or equivalent

The Cultural Legacies of the Jews

Jewish Studies 101

W 10-11:00am, 209 Dwinelle

Professor Robert Alter

The Search for Identity in the Jewish National Revival

Jewish Studies 120

Th 9:00am-12:00pm 3401 Dwinelle

Dr. Revital Amiran Sappir

I introduce the Jewish National movement as one that strove not only to establish a state for the Jewish people, but mainly as one that aspired to reshape the Jewish identity. In other words, we will try to follow the way many writers and formulators of Jewish nationality aspired to present different agendas for the modern, secular Jewish life. By reading a mixture of ideological essays and literary works (such as Smolenskin, Mapu, Ahad Ha'am, A.D.Gordon, Berdichevsky, Brenner, etc.) the course will illustrate how many of these intellectuals captured the Zionist movement as an opportunity to solve the cultural crisis in which Eastern and Central European Jews found themselves in the second half of the nineteenth century. Concomitant with that we will find out how literature and the literary arena served as a prominent factor in this mission. Instead of using literature as a propaganda tool, the Hebrew authors, by presenting plural, sophisticated and critical Zionst views, took crucial part and were in many senses the leaders of this journey in search of a new Jewish identity.

Biblical Hebrew Texts

Hebrew 107B

TuTh 11:00am-12:30pm, 271 Barrows

Professor Chava Boyarin

Biblical Hebrew, reading Biblical Prose texts. We'll be reading 1 Samuel from Chapter 18 onward. We will be reviewing the Grammar of the verb in BH, special locutions and expressions, as well as learning how does the Bible narrate a story, and looking at Theological issues and the daily religious life as described in this book. Pre-requisite Heb. 106a+b or equivalent.

Historical Linguistics of Biblical Hebrew

Hebrew 298

Tu 2:00-5:00pm, 271 Barrows

Professor Ronald Hendel

Secular Rewritings for the Sacred: Modernity, Intertextuality and the Traditional Jewish Bookcase

Hebrew 204B

M 2:00-5:00pm, 252 Barrows

Professors Chana Kronfeld and Naomi Seidman

This course will explore the uses, appropriations, and reclamations of Jewish traditional texts, motifs, and themes in the secular poetry and prose of the modernist era, particularly in Hebrew and Yiddish. Why did Jewish secularists return to tradition and how did they rewrite it for modern literary purposes? We will use theories of intertextuality and midrashic hermeneutics to analyze these texts, reading modern versions alongside their traditional precursors. Among the writers we will read include S. Ansky, S.Y. Agnon, Dvora Baron, Kadya Molodowsky, Yehuda Amichai and Dalia Ravikovich. Readings will be available in both the original and English translation.

Modern Hebrew Literature and Culture

Hebrew 104B

W 2:00-5:00pm, 252 Barrows

Professor Chana Kronfeld

From Old World to Lost World: Yiddish Film and its Afterimages

Film 140, Section 3

MW 11:00am-1:00pm, 188 Dwinelle

Zehavit Stern

This course will explore the on-going process of imagining Eastern European Jewish culture through film and other art forms including theatre, music, and literature from the early 20th century to the present. We will analyze pre- and post- WWII representations of this culture and the ways it figures the various tensions between tradition and modernism, isolation and cosmopolitanism and religion and secularism that marked 20th century culture and politics. Our starting point will be the now extinct Yiddish cinema and the ways this quintessentially modern art form of popular cinema at once constructed and questioned the image of traditional Jewish life. We will also explore the possible relationships between Yiddish cinema in Poland and the United States, to, on the one hand, the "high art" of modernist and avant-garde movements in visual art, literature and music, and on the other, popular culture from the Yiddish theatre and Borscht-belt comedy to Klezmer and Jazz music. We will then revisit these questions after the Holocaust through what might be called/ Post-Yiddish culture/ in the US, Europe, and Israel. We will explore the ways contemporary artists and filmmakers rise to the challenge of representing a 'lost' world and a traumatic past, in which memory and private and collective imagination overcome binaries of old/new, relevant/obsolete, dead/alive, us/them to create some of the most challenging contemporary cinema. (This course is supervised by Jeffrey Skoller.)

Jews and Muslims

History 100

MW 4:00-530pm, 106 Stanley

Professor Emily Gottreich

In discussions of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict or other Middle Eastern conflagrations, one often hears the claim that such struggles arise from (and indeed are inevitable because of) “ancient hatreds” endemic to a region in which religious war is simply the norm. The overarching goal of this course is to evaluate such statements through the close study of Jewish life and Jewish-Muslim relations as they developed in the Middle East and North Africa from the rise of Islam in the seventh century to the present day.

Introduction to Judaism

HSHR-2035

W 9:40 am-12:30pm. CDSP:113

Professor Deena Aranoff

This course will examine the historical development of Judaism, its canonical texts, practices, calendar, and culture. We will survey important features of Biblical and rabbinic literature, Jewish mystical and philosophical traditions, as well as aspects of modern Jewish culture. Short Papers.

Reading Medieval Texts: Medieval Jewish Biblical Exegesis

HSHR-4504

TH 9:40 am-12:30pm. CDSP:223

Professor Deena Aranoff

This course will examine the primary modes of Jewish Biblical hermeneutics in the medieval period: grammatical, mystical, allegorical, and rabbinic readings of the Bible. We will study the various forms of medieval Jewish exegesis and the controversies surrounding these often conflicting approaches to the Bible. Hebrew Required. Short weekly papers/final paper.

Jewish Jesus-Believers In Late Antiquity

HRHS-2026

F 9:40am-12:30pm, GTU:HDCU

Professor Holger Zellentin

Some groups in late antiquity combined observant Judaism with belief in Jesus. We will examine primary texts from such groups from the 1st-8th centuries CE, as well as outsiders' views of them. All texts will be available in translation and in primary languages.

Rabbinic Parodies In Midrash and Talmud

HRHS-5212

W 9:40am-12:30pm, GTU:HDCU

Professor Holger Zellentin

An advanced class in rabbinic Midrash and Talmud. We will explore how rabbinic literature imitates and subverts Greek, Christian, and Jewish literature. [Hebrew and Aramaic reading knowledge required; Greek and Syriac welcome]

Social Justice in Jewish Tradition

HRRS-3760

M 7:10pm-9:40pm, MUDD:102

R. Biale

This course will focus on biblical and rabbinic texts that undergird Jewish attitudes toward contemporary issues of social justice such as workers' rights, immigration, poverty, judicial equality, death penalty and equal rights. Some medieval and modern writings will be covered as well. Text study in English translation. Some knowledge of Hebrew a plus.

Secular Jewish Culture

HRRS-3731

T 9:40am-12:30pm, GTU:HDCU

R. Peckerar

This course will explore a variety of expressions of secular Jewish culture from the mid-19th century until the present day, focusing particularly on humor in the construction of secular Jewish identities.

Hebrew: Post-Biblical Readings

BSHR-3700

T 2:10-5:00pm, GTU:HDCU

Z. Septimus

This course covers the rich literature of the rabbinic and post-rabbinic traditional Jewish library, in close reading of the original sources. One half of the class will cover the Talmud in depth. Translation/quizzes/oral presentation. [1 year of Hebrew] This course is taught by PhD student Zvi Septimus with a Newhall Award, under the supervision of Dr. Naomi Seidman