Spring 2025 Undergraduate Courses
Jewish Studies 102.001
Elementary Judeo-Spanish (Ladino)
Instructor: Adam Mahler
CN# 27825
Meeting Time: Tuesdays/Thursdays 2:00-3:30pm
Location: Online
Units: 4
Judeo-Spanish, also known as Ladino, is the linguistic legacy of the Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal in the late fifteenth century. In this translation-driven course, students will learn to read and analyze Judeo-Spanish literary and cultural texts. Combining language instruction with elements of literary studies, this fast-paced course exposes students to Sephardic culture in the longue durée, including Hispano-Jewish poetry, Moroccan balladry, liturgical texts from Amsterdam, Ottoman-era memoir, holocaust testimony from the Balkans, and Jewish-American reportage and satire. Depending on course composition, students will have the opportunity to practice basic conversational skills. No knowledge of Hebrew or a Romance language required.
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Jewish Studies 110.001
Jews and Judaism in the American Political Mind
Instructor: Louis Schubert
CN# 27849
Meeting Time: Tuesdays/Thursdays 3:30-5:00pm
Location: Hearst Gym 242
Units: 3
Despite small size, Jews and Judaism have held a large place in the American political mind. This course examines the role of Jewish thought in American ideas since before the Founding, analyzes past and current views on Jews and Judaism across the American political spectrum, and explores continuing anti-Semitism and philo-Semitism in the US.
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Jewish Studies 117
The Origins of Racism in the West
Instructor: Yonatan Binyam
CN# 33719
Meeting Time: Tuesdays/Thursdays 12:30-2:30pm
Location: Evans 75
Units: 4
This course provides students an opportunity to investigate the similarities and differences between premodern and modern group identity narratives. Premodern narratives of peoplehood will be analyzed alongside modern racial narratives utilizing a comparative approach to reading primary sources, coupled with a critical engagement with secondary sources on the issues of race, racism, and religion. The course will focus on narratives related to Western Civilization, white people, black people, Antisemitism, and Orientalism. It will also cover some of the parallels and differences between Western ideologies of racism and Antisemitism and those found in certain parts of the premodern Islamic world and the Middle East.
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Jewish Studies 120.001
Jewish Folktales Around the World: Past and Present, Self and Other
Instructor: Sarah Levin
CN# 25144
Meeting Time: Tuesdays/Thursdays 3:30-5:00pm
Location: Social Sciences Bldg 50
Units: 3
Folklore helps us make sense of the world we live in at the same time that it entertains us.
• Curious about dybbuks, golems, genies (jinns)?
• Want to know the folktales Shakespeare used?
• Want to learn new Jewish jokes?
In this course, we’ll read a sampling of folktales and jokes from diverse Jewish communities (German, Kurdish, Moroccan, Russian, Yemeni, etc.) while exploring themes such as creativity and artistic expression. We’ll also address gender, group identity and values, stereotypes, and the interactions of Jews and non-Jews. Films, videos, and guest storytellers will complement discussions. Final projects allow students to pursue their interests. Students from all majors and backgrounds are welcome. Conducted in English with readings in English.
– Meets Arts & Literature, L&S breadth
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Jewish Studies 120A.003
Literature, Psychoanalysis and Human Relations
Instructor: Yael Segalovitz
CN# 25900
Meeting Time: Tuesdays/Thursdays 9:30-11:00am
Location: Dwinelle 247
Units: 4
Hebrew literature is a hybrid creature with no stable home. Historically developed in exile by people navigating between languages and cultures, it emerged from a “living-dead” language that experienced both death and resurrection. To this day, Hebrew literature exists in a constant state of in-betweenness, carrying the weight of historical trauma and an intensely contentious present.
This course examines Hebrew literature’s liminal status through a psychoanalytic lens, focusing particularly on the psychoanalytic school of object relations and its conception of intersubjectivity—the understanding that neither people nor texts exist as autonomous, self- sufficient entities, but rather in perpetual relation to others. We will explore the inter-relationality between Hebrew and its historical and contemporary linguistic encounters, from its ancient
dialogue with Aramaic to its modern interactions with Yiddish, Arabic, and English, as well as its self-positioning between diaspora and homeland, exile and return, margins and center.
Our theoretical framework draws on psychoanalytic thinkers such as Wilfred Bion, Donald Winnicott, Christopher Bollas, and Thomas Ogden, examining how therapeutic concepts like “the third,” “the unthought known,” “the transitional space,” and the “intermind” may help us in literary analysis. Through close readings of works by authors such as Amalia Kahana-Carmon, David Grossman, and Maya Arad—written both in Israel, where Hebrew serves as the official national language, and in the diaspora—we’ll investigate how Hebrew literature challenges our notion of self-contained individuality and explore the implications and practice of reading through an intersubjective lens.
– Meets Arts & Literature, L&S breadth
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Jewish Studies 120.004
Yiddish Linguistics
Instructor: Isaac Bleaman
CN# 33364
Meeting Time: Tuesdays/Thursdays 9:30-11:00am
Location: Social Sciences Bldg 126
Units: 3
This course is a linguistic introduction to Yiddish, the traditional vernacular language of Central and Eastern European Jews. We will address topics in Yiddish phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics; theories about the origins and historical development of the language; the properties that distinguish the major regional dialects; and sociolinguistic issues related to standardization and the contemporary vitality of the language.
PREREQUISITE: Linguistics 100 is optional but strongly encouraged.
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Jewish Studies 121.001
Performing Texts: Music, Liturgy, Jewish Life
Instructor: Francesco Spagnolo
CN# 23497
Meeting Time: Wednesdays 2:00-5:00pm
Location: The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art & Life, 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley. CA
Units: 4
Multi-disciplinary exploration of the nexus between music and liturgy across the global Jewish Diaspora. Offers an anthropological approach to the relationship between written text and oral cultures in Judaism: music, classical and contemporary texts, poetry, architecture, material culture, and synagogue life. This course leverages the resources Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, including texts in Hebrew and other languages, written music manuscripts, audio and video recordings, iconographic sources, and ritual and everyday life objects.
A core aspect of Jewish life and creativity in the global Diaspora, liturgy involves the interaction of texts, sounds, objects, architectural spaces and body language within the performative space of the synagogue. These elements and their related sources are often studied as separate cultural entities, according to distinct methodologies. A multi-disciplinary perspective on liturgy and ritual must instead integrate the study of language and literary texts with musicology and ethnomusicology, the study of visual and material cultures, anthropology and the investigation of everyday life.
The performative nexus between text and music that emerges in the context of synagogue life opens the investigation to a variety of social and anthropological aspects of Jewish liturgy. Synagogue rituals are both structured communal performances dictated by religious authority, and arenas for the public display of variegated social issues, such as power relations, aesthetic sensibilities, and attitudes towards the “other,” often well outside the synagogue and the Jewish communal sphere.
In this seminar we will work hands-on with written texts, orally transmitted music, printed and manuscript music scores, ritual objects, visual sources, synagogue architectural plans, and observe the choreography of the ritual, examining primary and secondary sources and conducting field trips to complement our research on the performance/enactment of these dimensions within the dynamic context of synagogue life.
The seminar is intended for students with particular interests in music, Jewish studies, literature, ethnography and anthropology, and leverages the resources brought to UC Berkeley with the establishment of The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life.
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Jewish Studies 122.002
Religion and Spirituality in Education: Israeli and American Cases
Instructor: Hanan Alexander
CN# 27875
Meeting Time: Tuesdays/Thursdays 2:00-3:30pm
Location: Dwinelle 106
Units: 3
This course is a linguistic introduction to Yiddish, the traditional vernacular language of Central and Eastern European Jews. We will address topics in Yiddish phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics; theories about the origins and historical development of the language; the properties that distinguish the major regional dialects; and sociolinguistic issues related to standardization and the contemporary vitality of the language.
PREREQUISITE: Linguistics 100 is optional but strongly encouraged.
– Meets International Studies, L&S breadth
– Meets Philosophy & Values, L&S Breadth
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Jewish Studies 122A.001
Gender, Sexuality, and the Bible
Instructor: Jenna Kemp
CN# 24414
Meeting Time: Tuesdays/Thursdays 2:00-3:30pm
Location: Social Sciences Building 271
Units: 4
The Bible has been invoked into many conversations about gender and sexuality, resulting in an oftentimes toxic view of these topics. But what does the Bible really say? We will not be surprised to find out that the Bible is no queer or feminist manifesto, but it does contain a complex, historically-situated, and culturally contextual view of gender and sexuality as its authors discuss family, power, God’s gender, sex work, same-sex contact, sexual violence, etc.
In this course, we will attempt to set aside our assumptions of the Bible and instead meet its texts, authors, and characters on their own terms, all the while building skills in understanding and using theories of gender and sexuality. We will be able to critically engage biblical literature with a new set of questions by considering three distinct, yet interrelated, angles:
*The Bible as literature
*The Bible in its cultural context
*Theories of gender and sexuality
From an interweaving of these three perspectives, we will learn how to read the Bible, understand it historically, and then ask what understandings of gender and sexuality are reflected in its pages.
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Jewish Studies 126
Modern Jewish Thought: Faith, Culture, and Education
Instructor: Hanan Alexander
CN# 33363
Meeting Time: Tuesdays/Thursdays 9:30-11:00am
Location: Social Sciences Bldg. 78
Units: 3
What should we do about the needs of humanity versus the reality of climate change? How can we balance individual freedom and collective needs around issues from gun violence to reproductive freedom? What should the relationship be between diaspora and homeland? How can we solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? For centuries, leading thinkers and streams of Jewish traditions have sought to address these and other pressing world questions. By introducing students to Jewish Thought, this course enables students to unlock a series of texts and intellectual currents that utilize Jewish scripture, ethics, philosophy, and law to tackle timeless and timely questions of the human condition.
** Students may petition to use this course towards the Jewish Studies Minor, in lieu of Jewish Studies 100.**
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Other Spring 2025 Courses that Count Towards the JS Minor
History 103U
Pro Seminar: Sephardic Jewish History
Instructor: Emily Gottreich
CN# 24694
Meeting Time: Mondays 12:00-2:00pm
Location: Dwinelle 2305
Units: 4
This seminar will explore the rich and complex history of Jews with roots in the Iberian Peninsula who, in their exile from Spain in 1492 came to be known as the Sephardim. We will investigate the history of Judeo-Spanish Sephardic culture, ritual, and identity within the various contexts that it developed. These include Islamic and Christian Spain as well as the diverse places where Jews settled after the expulsion, principally the Ottoman Empire, Morocco, the Balkans, Italy, and the Americas, where they encountered and lived among Jews of other backgrounds as well as non-Jews. Each week we will take a deep dive into a particular theme. Preparation, attendance and active participation in seminar is an absolute requirement. Each student will have the opportunity to lead discussion at least once. All readings will be in English, and no foreign language skills are required (though you are welcome to bring in supplementary sources if you wish.) In addition to learning about the Sephardic experience, we will also pay careful attention to broader historiographic questions about how Sephardic history fits into existing frameworks of intellectual inquiry, including Jewish and MENA studies, Ottoman and European history, holocaust narratives, and so on.
– Meets Social & Behavioral Sciences, L&S Breadth
– Meets Historical Studies, L&S Breadth
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
History 178
History of the Holocaust
Instructor: John Efron
CN# 31798
Meeting Time: Tue/Thu 2:00-3:30pm
Location: Valley Life Sciences 2040
Units: 4
This course will survey the historical events and intellectual developments leading up to and surrounding the destruction of European Jewry during World War II. By reading a mixture of primary and secondary sources we will examine the Shoah (the Hebrew word for the Holocaust) against the backdrop of modern Jewish and modern German history. The course is divided into three main parts: (1) the historical background up to 1933; (2) the persecution of the Jews and the beginnings of mass murder, 1933-1941; and (3) the industrialized murder of the Jews, 1942-1945.
– Meets Social & Behavioral Sciences, L&S Breadth
– Meets Historical Studies, L&S Breadth
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Legal Studies 174
Comparative Constitutional Law: The Case of Israel
Instructor: Masua Sagiv
CN# 23451
Meeting Time: Mon 2:00-5:00pm
Location: Wheeler 104
Units: 4
This course will provide an introduction to constitutional law using Israel as a case study. Topics include: Constitutionalism and judicial review, state neutrality and self-determination, minority rights, state and religion, Human Rights Law, the concept of “defensive democracy" and ban of non-democratic political parties, legal aspects of the fight on terror, freedom of expression, equality and anti-discrimination, social rights, and constitutional limitations on privatization.
– Meets International Studies, L&S Breadth
– Meets Historical Studies, L&S Breadth
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Yiddish 102A
Elementary Yiddish 2
Instructor: Noa Tsaushu
CN# 34114
Meeting Time: Mon, Wed, Fri 9:00-10:00am
Location: Online
Units: 4
This course is a second-part introduction to the language that has been spoken by Ashkenazic Jews for more than a millennium, and an opportunity to discover the rich world of Yiddish language and culture through literature, music, folklore, television, blogs, and even memes. Using the communicative approach, we will learn how to speak, read, listen, write, and think critically about the worlds of Yiddish past and present.
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Yiddish 103
History of Yiddish Culture in English
Instructor: Miriam Borden
CN# 26897
Meeting Time: Tue/Thu 12:30-2:00pm
Location: Online
Units: 3
Who are the Jews? Yiddish culture holds one set of answers. Yiddish, the heritage language of Ashkenazic Jews in Europe, is the key to 1,000 years of Jewish history and culture. This course traces the development of Yiddish culture from the first settlements of Jews in German lands through centuries of life in Eastern Europe, down to the main cultural centers today in Israel and the Americas. Through transnational Yiddish folklore, literature, music, drama, and more, we examine how the Yiddish language became a powerful tool to respond to changes and challenges to Jewish life. We will consider the Jewish encounter with travel, exile, race, violence, and politics across several centuries, especially in the modern period. And we will consider more recent representations—and reinventions—of Yiddish culture in contemporary film, television, digital media, and popular culture. By the end of the course, students will be able to unravel the mystery, the wit, and the beauty of the mameloshn (mother tongue).
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Fall 2024 Undergraduate Courses
Jewish Studies 100.002
Jews and Their Neighbors(link is external)
Instructor: Sarah Levin
CN# 27300
Meeting Time: Tuesdays/Thursdays 2:00-3:30pm
Location: Social Sciences Bldg
Units: 4
This course introduces students to the diversity of Jewish communities across time and geographies through a survey of literatures, histories, and cultures. Jewish cultures have always been co-produced in interaction with their non-Jewish neighbors. Through this study of Jewish cultural pluralism throughout history, we will investigate complex issues of identity and layers of belonging. Students from all majors and backgrounds are welcome. No previous knowledge of Judaism or Jewish Studies is necessary.
– Meets Philosophy & Values, L&S Breadth
– Meets Historical Studies, L&S Breadth
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Jewish Studies 103 - CLASS CANCELLED
Advanced Judeo-Spanish Seminar: Ibero-Jewish Voices from the Margins(link is external)
Instructor: Adam Mahler
CN# 33558
Meeting Time: Wednesdays 12:00-3:00pm
Location: Online
Units: 4
The literary production of medieval Spain and Portugal took place, by and large, in Hebrew. The Sephardic diaspora that began in the fourteenth century and peaked in the late fifteenth century— following edicts of expulsion and mass conversion—gave rise to a Jewish-voiced Romance language literature. Even so, the pressures of belletristic taste and religious doctrine meant that the Sephardic diaspora wrote many of its most intellectually significant works in Hebrew or other prestige languages. Meanwhile, Judeo-Spanish writers cultivated a hyper-literary style that betrays distinct cultural anxieties and does not always offer an affecting glimpse into the everyday lives of diasporic communities in the Levant.
In the face of such circumstances, how do we recover authentic Jewish voices from the literary record? How can we productively speculate on Jewish lives through Christian writers’ impersonations? And what broader social insights can we glean from the elite Sephardic literature
of later years?
Conducted in Judeo-Spanish, this course attempts to answer these and other questions by interrogating primary sources that span the twelfth to twentieth centuries. Course authors include: Ibn Ezra, Yudah Harizi, Gil Vicente, Antón Montoro, Shem Tov ibn Isaac Ardutiel, Moshe Arragel, Sabbtai Tsvi, Samuel Usque, Viktor Levi, Sa’adi A-Levi, and Emma Lazarus. In addition to Judeo- Spanish materials, the course will also incorporate readings from the Old Spanish, Judeo-
Portuguese, and early modern Castilian and Portuguese literary traditions, with English translations provided when necessary or as an interpretive aid.
PREREQUISITE: Jewish Studies 102/Spanish 135 or equivalent. Please contact the instructor if you have questions regarding preparedness.
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Jewish Studies 120.002
Powerlessness and Superpowers: Comic Books & Jewish Identity(link is external)
Instructor: Louis Schubert
CN# 26230
Meeting Time: Tuesdays/Thursdays 3:30-5:00pm
Location: Evans 31
Units: 3
Coming from exclusion and powerlessness, Jewish creators invented the modern comic book. Comics are where Jewish stories get told, from the Holocaust to daily life. The superhero genre, mostly invented by Jews, narrates core Jewish ethical concepts such as Responsibility to the Other. We will read lots of comics and focus on the overlapping themes of Jewish history, identity, and faith.
– Meets Arts & Literature, L&S Breadth
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Jewish Studies 120A.001
Crossing Borders, or, How to Translate Hebrew Literature?(link is external)
Instructor: Yael Segalovitz
CN# 27271
Meeting Time: Tuesdays/Thursdays 12:30-2:00pm
Location: Dwinelle 283
Units: 4
At first glance, translation may seem straightforward—merely transferring words from one language to another. Yet, beneath this surface simplicity lies a labyrinth of challenges: How do we translate idioms unique to one language, or convey rhythm and rhyme, or handle culturally specific humor and slang? When we read a work in translation, are we truly engaging with any “original,” or are we encountering something entirely different?
This course engages these complex questions, using Hebrew Literature and its translations into English as our primary lens. We'll explore the nature of translation by following the same Hebrew text in different English forms, by reading translators' reflections, by unpacking theoretical texts on translation, by analyzing works by Palestinian writers that navigate the spaces between languages and cultures, and through hands-on experiences with “translation” between different registers of English.
Translation, many practitioners claim, is the most rigorous form of reading. By the end of this course, then, you will not only gain insight into the complexities of translation and broaden your knowledge of Modern Hebrew and Israeli literature but will also—perhaps mostly—sharpen your analytical skills applicable far beyond the material of this specific course. Join Yael Segalovitz in this transnational, translinguistic, and transcultural journey!
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Jewish Studies 121A.002
Jews in the Modern World(link is external)
Instructor: John Efron
CN# 33572
Meeting Time: Tuesdays/Thursdays 12:30-2:00pm
Location: Wheeler 200
Units: 4
This course will examine the impact of modern intellectual, political, cultural, and social forces on the Jewish people since the eighteenth century. It is our aim to come to an understanding of how the Jews interpreted these forces and how and in what ways they adapted and utilized them to suit the Jewish experience. In other words, we will trace the way Jews became modern. Some of the topics to be covered include Emancipation, the Jewish Enlightenment, new Jewish religious movements, Jewish politics and culture, immigration, antisemitism, the Holocaust, and the state of Israel.
– Meets Historical Studies, L&S Breadth
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Jewish Studies 122A.001
Literature and History in the Hebrew Bible(link is external)
Instructor: Jenna Stover
CN# 33594
Meeting Time: Tuesdays/Thursdays 12:30-2:00pm
Location: Evans 55
Units: 4
This course will examine the impact of modern intellectual, political, cultural, and social forces on the Jewish people since the eighteenth century. It is our aim to come to an understanding of how the Jews interpreted these forces and how and in what ways they adapted and utilized them to suit the Jewish experience. In other words, we will trace the way Jews became modern. Some of the topics to be covered include Emancipation, the Jewish Enlightenment, new Jewish religious movements, Jewish politics and culture, immigration, antisemitism, the Holocaust, and the state of Israel.
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Jewish Studies 122B - CLASS CANCELLED
Pre-Modern Judaism: Constructing Judaism, Christianity and Islam
Instructor: Madeline Wyse
CN# 34336
Meeting Time: Tuesdays/Thursdays 3:30-5:00pm
Location: Social Sciences Bldg 80
Units: 4
Jewish Sufis! Torah-Observant Christians! What did it mean to be a pre-modern Jew (or Muslim or Christian) and who got to decide?
This course will examine the long process of defining and contesting the category of "Judaism" from the Second Temple Period through the Islamic Middle Ages. We will start with the “births” of “Christianity,” “Judaism,” and “Islam and focus on the ways proponents of these emerging categories attempted to define themselves and one another. We will then explore the ways these categories continued to be reinforced, blurred or redefined in the medieval Islamic world. We will examine a variety of case studies and weigh the usefulness of different conceptual models like co-production, influence, cross-pollination, and symbiosis in making sense of the social and religious dynamics we encounter in the sources.
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Jewish Studies 122.001
Gender, Religion, and Law: The Case of Israel(link is external)
Instructor: Masua Sagiv
CN# 23776
Meeting Time: Mondays 2:00-5:00pm
Location: Valley Life Sciences Bldg 2030
Units: 4
The course will explore the intersection of gender, religion, and law in Israel, as manifested in social movement activism through law and society. Incorporating existing law with current discourse and issues around the suggested legal reforms and the fragility of Israeli democracy, the course will illustrate and reflect upon different strategies and spheres for promoting social change, by examining core issues involving gender, religion and law in Israel: religious marriage and divorce, gender equality in the religious establishment, free exercise of religion (at the Western Wall and Temple Mount), and gender segregation in public places and in academia. Spheres of activism to be covered include parliament, state courts, alternative private initiatives and courts, and social protests.
– Meets Philosophy & Values, L&S Breadth
– Meets International Studies, L&S Breadth
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Jewish Studies 175E
History of Modern Israel: From the Emergence of Zionism to Our Time
Instructor: Ethan Katz
CN# 34112
Meeting Time: Tuesdays/Thursdays 11:00am-12:30pm
Location: Giannini 141
Units: 4
This course will at once offer a long-term historical view and be particularly valuable for placing the events of the present in context. Throughout, we emphasize the importance of two topics that challenged the Zionist project from its early years: the “Arab question” and the issue of the place of religion in a modern Jewish state. Subsequent lessons will trace the Zionists’ complex relationship to the British empire; attitudes of Zionism toward the native Arabs of Palestine; the building of the Yishuv; the creation of modern Hebrew culture in realms from language to the arts; the rise of both Labor and Revisionist Zionism; the impact of antisemitism and the Holocaust in Europe; and the Arab resistance to Zionism that exploded in the 1929 riots, the 1936 Great Arab Revolt, and the 1948 War and refugee crisis. The portion of the class that deals with the years of the state addresses the consequences of Israel’s founding for the Jewish and Arab inhabitants of Palestine; the institutionalization of state socialism and the military as the strongest institutions in Israel; the waves of Jewish migration from surrounding Arab and Muslim countries and Israel’s changing ethnic makeup; a series of military conflicts; the way that the Israeli victory of 1967 dramatically transformed the region and unleashed new political and cultural forces within Israeli society; the emergence of the Occupation in the West Bank and Gaza and the rise of the settlement movement and the Israeli right; the rise of the Palestinian nationalist movement; the rise and fall of the Peace Process; the “economic miracle” of the early twenty-first century; and the new hegemony of the Israeli religious Right. We will conclude the course by discussing October 7 and the current war in historical context.
– Meets Philosophy & Values, L&S Breadth
– Meets Historical Studies, L&S Breadth
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Other Fall 2024 Undergraduate Classes That Count Toward the Minor
Architecture 139.002
Learning from Jerusalem: Society and Space in a Shared City
Instructor: Esther Rubin
CN# 33296
Meeting Time: Wednesdays 9:00am-12:00pm
Location: Wurster 370
Units: 3
This seminar will explore the urban design of Jerusalem as a shared space: a sacred site and a national emblem for Jews, Christians, and Muslims. It will rely on the reciprocal relationship between society and space, i.e., how different cultures produce different urban settings. to ask how a city reflects its living societies and examine the tools and tactics different societies employ to shape their living spaces through urban design, architecture, and urban planning. Furthermore, we will ask: What does the shape of a city reveal about space and urban community? How does the urban landscape transmit hidden meanings? Finally, we will ask what happens when society changes, bringing with it its goals and means of design, and explore changes to the urban landscape that occur when cultures change and, with them, values, notions of holiness, and spatial design. Shaped by different cultures over 3000 years, Jerusalem will serve us as a unique laboratory through which we will trace the relationship between culture, architecture, and design as they are reflected on the ground and in various cultural media. A major source for the course will be a newly established database of Jerusalem Architectural Archives, which reveals new collections about the modern development of Jerusalem during the Ottoman, British Mandate, and Israeli periods.
Hebrew 1A
Instructor: Chava Boyarin
CN# 21606
Meeting Time: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10:00-11:00am
Location: Social Sciences 252
Units: 5
This course is the first semester of the elementary level of Modern Hebrew and is meant for students who have no or little experience with the Hebrew language. Students will learn to read and write the Hebrew alphabet (both print and cursive) as well as gain proficiency in speaking and listening. Students will develop a foundational vocabulary, allowing them to communicate in basic sentences. Together with the second semester of Elementary Hebrew, students will be prepared to engage with the Hebrew language in routine contexts.
Hebrew 106A
Instructor: Jenna Kemp
CN# 27149
Meeting Time: Tuesdays/Thursdays 2:00-3:30pm
Location: Social Sciences 271
Units: 3
Hebrew 20A
Instructor: Chava Boyarin
CN# 33780
Meeting Time: Monday, Tuesday 11:00am-12:00pm
Location: Social Sciences 275
Meeting Time: Wednesday, Thursday 11:00am-12:00pm
Location: Social Sciences 8B
Units: 5
This course is the first semester of the intermediate level of Modern Hebrew. The course continues where Elementary Hebrew 1B left off and further cultivates the student's speaking, reading, listening, and writing proficiencies in Modern Hebrew. It expands on vocabulary and expressions, allowing students to hold colloquial conversations as well as establishing a foundation to discuss more sophisticated topics.
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Yiddish 101A
Instructor: Noa Tsaushu
CN# 26329
Meeting Time: Monday, Wednesday, Friday 1:00-2:00pm
Location: Online
Units: 4
In this beginners' course students will learn to speak, read, and write Yiddish, the original language of East European Jews. Using the communicative method and the new textbook In Eynem, students will focus in class on speaking by playing out short dialogues. Grammar will be taught inductively, through examples. The course will introduce Yiddish culture through a variety of songs, stories, film clips, and illustrations.
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor
Yiddish 104
History of Yiddish Civilization
Instructor: Noa Tsaushu
CN# 33741
Meeting Time: Tuesdays/Thursdays 11:00am-12:30pm
Location: Online
Units: 4
This course will trace the development of Yiddish civilization down to today from the first settlement of Jews in German lands, roughly a thousand years ago. At its peak, Yiddish was spoken over a larger European territory than any language except Russian. In fact, long before Yiddish culture came to be centered in Eastern Europe, many of the best works of Old Yiddish literature were written in Renaissance Italy. Because Jews were a highly mobile population in contact with many different peoples, Yiddish was everywhere influenced by neighboring languages and became the prototypical fusion language.
– Counts towards the Jewish Studies Minor