Jewish History Courses & Requirements

Social, economic, political. and intellectual history of medieval Jews, particularly in the major European centers. Emphasis is placed on developments in law, philosophy, poetry and mysticism. Topics include: the status of Jews under Christianity and Islam; communal organization and economic activity; Jews in European culture; Jewish-Christian polemics; controversy regarding the study of philosophy; crusades and martyrdom; expulsion, Marranism; Sabbatianism; and transition to the modern period.

A survey of modern Jewish history from the French Revolution to World War 1. Major developments are analyzed in light of political, social and ideological currents and trends. Emphasis is placed upon the emergence of diverse expressions of Jewish religious and secular identity. Topics include: the Enlightenment and emancipation; Wissenschaft des Judentums; rise of Reform Judaism; the Positive-Historical School: Neo-Orthodoxy; eastern Haskalah; Volozhin and the Yeshiva movement; Mussar movement; Jewish socialism; political and racial anti-Semitism; migrations; Hibbat Zion and Zionism.

The Babylonian Jewish community and its institutions from the beginning of the Geonic era until the passing of Rav Hai (1038). The Geonim as successors of the Amoraim, as arch champions of the Babylonian Talmud and as predecessors of the Rishonim in Europe.

History, content, structure and methodology of the Mishnah and related Tannaitic literature.

The gentile or non-Jew has played a prominent role in rabbinic literature from the time of the Mishnah or late antiquity until the present day. This course will explore this literature, showing how the Jew interacted with the gentile both socially and halakhically, with each new social reality throughout Jewish history offering new challenges and requiring the rabbis to find new solutions.

An examination of Jewish legal literature from the close of the Talmud until the 14th century. The course will analyze the authorship, content and methodology of specific works, and assess the purpose of these works. Readings will include: R. Hai Gaon, R. Yitzchak Alfasi, R. Yonatan m’Lunel, Rashi, Ri Migash, Maimonides, Nahmanides, Rashba and Ritvah.

A study of the emergence of an ordained, professional rabbinate in the Middle Ages. Topics include: sources related to the institution of rabbinic ordination; the 16th century semikha controversy; rabbis as educators; the rabbinate in Sephardic and Ashkenazic communities.

A study of the political status, economic foundations, communal organization. family structure, educational ideals and reality as well as the intellectual activities of Ashkenazic Jewry in the Middle Ages. Emphasis placed on the primary sources of the period.

A study of the sources of Italian Jewish history highlighting Italian Jewry's role as a transmitter of Jewish culture and its characteristic blend of materials and forms. Topics include: the beginning of Italian Jewish civilization and the varieties of Italian Jewish literary creativity during the early and late Renaissance, with attention paid to such figures as Anatoli, Recanati, Shibbolei Haleket and Azariah de Rossi.

Religious, cultural, social, and political history of the Jews in Italy from the 13th-17th centuries.

This course will examine the range of Christian attitudes to Jews and Judaism over the centuries, from the first century to our own time. It will focus on major events and themes. These include the foundational teachings of Paul and the Church Fathers; the growth of the Western Church; the First Crusades; forced disputations; late medieval demonization of the Jews; the impact of the Protestant and Catholic Reformations; the emergence of the ideas of tolerance; and the issuing of "Nostra Aetate" (Vatican II).

Christian attitudes toward the Talmud in the medieval and modern periods: burnings, censorship and academic study.

This course examines the evolution of the concept of Jewish Martyrdom, from its Biblical roots until the Holocaust. Based primarily upon close reading of primary sources, students will follow the manner in which changing circumstances and challenges affected and fashioned the legal and extra-legal modes of martyric conduct. These will be examined in light of discrete analyses of specific historical events: The Babylonian Exile (586-536 BCE), The Antiochine Persecutions (167 BCE), The Great Revolt Against Rome (66-73 CE), The Hadrianic Persecutions (130-135 CE), The First Crusade (1096 CE), The Spanish Persecutions (1391 CE), The Chmielnicki Revolt (1648-1649 CE), the Holocaust (1933-1945 CE).

An examination of the controversy in Spain and Provence, exploring the varied positions of proponents and opponents of Maimonides' writings, and the roles of Rashba and Hameiri.

This course will deal with a period of major transformation in European Jewish life, from 1492 to 1750. It will focus on changes in Jewish-Christian relations, the impact of modern state-building on Jewish existence, and currents in Jewish thought and social life. Throughout, it will entail an examination of different patterns of development within Sephardi, Ashkenazi, and Italianate Jewish communities, as well as the interaction between members of these sub-groups.

This course focuses on the key dynamics of change within the population of Conversos from Spain and Portugal over the course of three hundred years, from 1391 to the end of the seventeenth century. The course will consider major controversies among scholars regarding who the Conversos \'really\' were, and examine the creation of a diaspora of ex-conversos who rejoined, or established Jewish communities outside Iberian lands.

A survey of the history of Jewish communities in Muslim societies and under Muslim rule, from the conquests of the 15th century to the dispersions and transformations of the 20th century. Including: Social, political, economic and legal developments; Demographic trends; Interactions between communities; Impacts of Imerialism, Nationalism and modern State-Building.

This course explores the interplay between the Holocaust and Jewish law (Halakha), examining rabbinic responses to unprecedented moral, legal, and theological challenges during and after the Shoah. Students will analyze case studies, responsa literature, and scholarly perspectives to understand how Jewish law confronted questions of survival, faith, and justice.

A review of new analytical and methodological strategies and approaches employed in the study of Jewish history, diverging from single national narratives, local or regional focus, and monolithic models of community structure and development.

A close study of Maimonidean texts dealing with the nature of the Messiah, the Messianic Age, the World-to-Come and Resurrection of the Dead.

This course will examine the responses of several leading rabbinic figures of the 19th and 20th centuries to the social and cultural changes wrought by modernity, specifically, either the incorporation of previously self-contained autonomous Jewish communities into the political and civic life of the states in which they developed, or communities that developed in the State of Israel. Three key issues will be stressed: the value of modern culture; the legitimacy of the notion of historical progress (scientific and ethical); and the extent to which Judaism is a truly universalist system which incorporates the welfare of every human being in the purview of its religious concerns and historical vision. Each thinker's conceptualization of halakhah will be examined. Thinkers include: Rabbis S. R. Hirsch, Zvi Hirsch Chajes, Elijah Benamozegh; Rabbis Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg, Eliezer Berkovits, Nachum Rabinovitch, Jonathan Sacks.

Survey of messianic ideas and movements in Jewish history, with emphasis on medieval developments and their significance. Topics include: messianic movements under Islam; messianism in medieval Jewish philosophy, especially the writings of Maimonides; the impact of the Spanish expulsion; David Reubeni and Solomon Molkho; Lurianic Kabbalah; Sabbatianism and Hasidism.

Polish-Jewish relations before, during and after the Holocaust.

A study of Jewish historical writing from the Second Temple period to the Spanish expulsion in 1492. Readings include the Letter of Aristeas, Josephus, Iggeret Rav Sherira Gaon, Sefer Josippon, Sefer ha-Kabbalah, Crusade Chronicles and writings of the Spanish Inquisition. Attention is paid to the question of medieval Jewish attitudes toward the study and meaning of history.

A study of Jewish historical writing from the works of sixteenth century authors including Solomon ibn Verga, Joseph ha-Kohen, Samuel Usque and Azariah de Rossi, to the diary of Gluckel of Hameln and Nathan Hannover’s Yeven Metzulah, to the writings of the Wissenschaft des Judenthum in the nineteenth century.

A survey of the social, political, religious, and intellectual history of the Jews in Russia and Poland from the partitions of Poland to the Russian Revolution. Topics include: the legacy of the Polish commonwealth; Hasidism and traditional Jewish society; Jews in Russia, Galicia, Congress Poland and Posen; Alexander II, the great reforms and the flourishing of Haskalah; emancipation in Poland, Austria and Prussia; social and economic transformations; the rise of Jewish nationalism; socialist, autonomist, and revolutionary ideologies; beginnings of migration; Hebrew and Yiddish literature; traditional Jewish life and the emergence of an orthodoxy; constitution, war, and revolution.

An examination of the social, economic and religious context which gave rise to Hasidism. The course will include: an analysis of the tales related to the Baal Shem Tov and disciples of the Besht; a study of the formation of a Hasidic movement; Mitnagid opposition to Hasidism; Hasidic customs and fundamental ideas of Hasidism, including the Zaddik and Devekut.

A detailed examination based on original sources of the theological, halakhic, and social issues which shaped the early reform movement in Germany, Hungary, England and the United States; Orthodox reaction and response as mirrored in periodical and responsa literature; internal development and transformation of attitudes within the reform movement; contemporary trends.

An examination of the various ways in which a sense of national mission shaped the intellectual contours of Jewish historical scholarship in interwar Poland. The course focuses upon the writings of Schipper, Schorr, Balaban, Mahler, Friedman and Ringelblum.

A seminar on the destruction of European Jewry during the years 1939-1945. Topics include: antisemitic and racist antecedents; the rise of the Nazi dictatorship; implementation of the "Final Solution”; Jewish responses to the catastrophe; reactions to Nazism in the free world, and post-World War II legacies.

An examination and analysis of the historical and cultural roots of antisemitism from ancient times until the present, concentrating on religious, sociological, economic and philosophical expressions.

The emergence of Zionism during the years 1880-1948 is examined with an emphasis on the major ideologues of the movement and factors which ultimately led to the creation of the State of Israel.

The study of the attitudes and responses of Orthodox and Reform thinkers to the rise in political Zionism in the late 19th and 20th centuries.

The seminar will address the development of international human rights law and politics from the end of the Holocaust until today. Our focal point will be the application and impact of these developments on the state of Israel. Particular attention will be paid to the United Nations system. The course will include a visit to one or more UN meetings.

The course will examine some of the major efforts of communal and religious leaders to save Jews during World War II.

A study of cinematic treatments of the Holocaust and its public memory and representation.

This course will examine Jewish experiences in postwar Europe, exploring social, religious, and cultural issues confronting survivors as they attempted to rebuild their personal lives and communal institutions in Eastern and Central Europe and in the DP camps.

An exploration of the cultural, social, political and religious character and needs of Jewish communities, large and small, throughout the world, in light of their individual histories.

The course explores different forms of Jewish self-writing from the middle ages to the modern period. We will read letters, diaries and autobiographical texts from both Western and Eastern Europe. The Jewish works will be analyzed within their wider social and cultural context. Readings include letters of Rabbi Yom Tov Lippman Heller, the autobiography of Leon of Modena, writings of 16th century mystics, diaries of R. Chaim Yoseph David Azulai and Rabbi Moshe Sofer.

A survey of a range of memoirs, diaries and letters pertaining to the development of American Jewish life, during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Major Jewish communities of eastern Europe (e.g., Warsaw, Lodz) until their destruction in the Holocaust.

Topics in this seminar include: Could more Jews have been saved by the Allies?; Negotiations with the Nazis; The Holocaust and Halacha and Nazi definitions of Jews: Mischlinge, Baptized Jews, Karaites (Poland), Spanish Jews (Holland), Mountain Jews (Caucasia), Persian Jews (France).

Seminar on the Israel-Arab conflict from its pre-Israel origins, beginning with the late Ottoman period, followed with the British Mandate; the UN decision, the Israel-Arab wars and failed peace negotiations, culminating in the Sadat visit and the current climate.

Seminar on the American Jewish experience from the East European migration to the present. Topics include: acculturation; novel forms of communal life; assimilation; the growth of American Zionism; non-Jewish perspectives, and contemporary issues of concern.

This course will examine the life and thought of Rabbi S. R. Hirsch (1808-1888), as well as his major works. The historical context for R. Hirsch’s life work, including the European Enlightenment, the Haskalah, and the German-Jewish Reform movement, will be examined.

His worldview, which includes his all-encompassing Torah im Derekh Eretz ideology, Mensch-Yisroel (relating to human and Jewish identity), and Austritt (communal separatism/secession), among others, will be treated in this class. Comparisons to the views of his rabbinic predecessors and contemporaries both in Germany and elsewhere will also be explored.

R. Hirsch’s accomplishments as a Jewish leader will be analyzed and his legacy for contemporary Judaism—and his relationship to varieties of Orthodox Judaism of the twenty-first century—will be explored.

An examination of religious matters in American Jewish life from colonial times to the present, reflected in responsa, periodical literature and other primary sources. Issues will include: religious Reform and Orthodox responses to Reform; attitudes to the Zionist movement; Conservative / Reconstructionist Judaism; Modern Orthodoxy; Hasidism and the "Yeshiva world" in post-war America.

Jews and Media Media explores the specific mediums of communication as technological innovations and how they were used to affect Jewish life in changing cultural, political, religious, and economic conditions.

This course will examine the ways in which the legal systems in Europe and in Israel struggled with and sought justice for the victims of the Nazi crimes after the Second World War. Topics will include the Nuremberg trials in postwar Germany and the Eichmann trial in Israel.

The course offers a hands-on exploration of local history as it is practiced and conceived in the Jewish context. It will examine the methods used in studying local history and engage students in researching the history of Jewish communities.

Close examination of the Arukh Ha-Shulhan, Mishnah Berurah and Hayei Adam in the contexts of the history of the genre and the social and communal realities of the period.

Exploration of attempts by Jewish and non-Jewish sources to negotiate with the Nazi Germany regime for the rescue of Jews prior to and during the war years.

An analysis of currents in medieval and modern Jewish history through readings of selected texts. Sample topics: Jews in the Muslim World: 15th-20th Centuries; Diasporas, Networks and Urban Centers in the Jewish World from the 15th to the 20th Centuries; The Art of the Other: Jews in Medieval and Modern European Art; Jews and Art; The War Against the Talmud; Jewish Autobiographies in 19th and 20th Century Eastern Europe; The Holocaust through the Lens of Documentary Films; Holocaust and Halakhah; Historiography of the Holocaust; French Jewry, 1806-1905; Religion and State: Israel - A Case Study.

The attitude of Rishonim toward aggadot Hazal, how the commentators distinguished among various types of aggadot, and how they put their theory into practice in the form of commentary on the aggadot. Among the Rishonim whose views and approaches will be studied are R. Abraham ibn Ezra, Rambam, Ramban, Rashba, and R. Menahem Hame\'iri. Special emphasis on the place that aggadah and its interpretation occupied in the world outlook of halakhists, philosophers, and kabbalists in the Middle Ages.

Studies in the history of interpretation of passages in tractate Abot, as barometers of trends and developments in Jewish intellectual and social history.

Text-based analysis of topics related to the development and literature of halakhah, with emphasis upon the medieval and modern periods. Sample topics include: History of Prayer; Methodologies of Arukh Ha-Shulchan and Mishnah Berurah; Halakhic Literature of the Sixteenth Century; Pluralism and its Limits in Jewish Legal Theory.

A history of the medieval halakhic literature from Geonic times: methods and styles of codification and Talmudic exegesis, literary style and influences, genres and their spread.

A survey of Jewish ethical writings from post-talmudic to modern times. Authors studied include Maimonides, R. Bahya ibn Pakuda, R. Judah the Pious, R. Jonah Gerondi, R. Moses Luzzatto, and R. Israel Salanter. Emphasis is placed on the role of ethical literature in Jewish intellectual history.

This course will examine the historical and social development of minhag within the body of rabbinic literature. We will investigate the place and status of minhag in halakhah as well as its role as a historical source of law. The analysis will focus on such principles as minhag mivatel halakhah, minhag Yisrael din and minhag avotenu biyadenu. Illustrative examples of specific customs will be explored, including minhagim such as mourning rites during sefirat haomer, the times when women are exempt from work, kapparot, beards, and customs related to the holiday of Shavuot, bar and bat mitzvah and Sefer Torah.

Credits by arrangement.

How different Rishonim and Aharonim view the dividing line between “Halakhah" on the one hand and “Aggadah” on the other; different approaches to the incorporation of Kabbalah into Halakhah.

Close analysis of texts, with emphasis on proper utilization of primary source material, general and specific methodological problems in the study of Jewish history, currents in recent scholarship, and practical use of bibliographical and research aids.

Traditional Judaism comprehends two disparate elements: Law and Sprituality. These recalcitrant movements complement and invigorate one another. While, in the pre-modern world, the Legal component of Judaism was both stable and consistent, its sources of spiritual inspiration were broadly divided between Rationalism and Mysticism. These, in turn, sought to infuse observance of the Law with both meaning and telos. The result was an ongoing tension between them, whenever ideological aims diverged from the formal upshot of Legal analysis. This course examines and characterizes the interactions between Law and different schools of Philosophy and Mysticism, in the medieval era (850-1650 CE). Among the issues addressed are: The Halakhic Process, The Role of Axiological Factors in Halakhic Decision-making, the Character of Jewish Philosophy (Kalamist, Neo-Platonic and Aristotelian), Philosophy and Law, the Search for Reasons for the Commandments, The Nature of the Mystical Search, The Law as a Divine Emanation and its Impact on the Commandments, The Lurianic Revolution and its Impact.

Students pursue guided research into the sources of Jewish history and formally present the results of their investigations in class for discussion and critical evaluation.

This seminar examines the rich and largely understudied world of demons, monsters, and supernatural beings in premodern Jewish culture as a window into broader questions of social organization, religious authority, gender, medicine, and intercultural exchange. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources — including Talmudic literature, medieval legal texts, mystical and kabbalistic writings, amulets, folktales, and visual culture — students will interrogate how Jewish communities across time and geography imagined, classified, and responded to supernatural threats. Special attention will be given to the methodological challenges of reading these sources historically: what does a demonological text reveal about the anxieties, power structures, and cultural negotiations of the community that produced it? The course situates Jewish supernatural culture in comparative perspective, exploring points of contact and tension with Christian and Islamic traditions in medieval Europe and the Near East. By the end of the seminar, students will have developed a sophisticated set of tools for reading premodern sources against the grain, treating the fantastical not as marginal curiosity but as a serious and revealing archive of Jewish historical experience.

Study of the framework and basic concerns of medieval Jewish thought as expressed in the works of R. Saadiah Gaon, R. Bahya ibn Pakuda, R. Judah Halevi, Maimonides, and R. Joseph Albo. Themes include: faith and reason, prophecy, miracles, free will, dogma, reasons for the commandments, ethics, and prayer. Differing attitudes toward the value of philosophy will be analyzed, and attention paid to relevant writings of Islamic and Christian thinkers.

Study of the framework and basic concerns of modern Jewish philosophy as developed in the works of such thinkers as Franz Rosenzweig, Emil Fackenheim, A.J. Heschel and Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Themes include: the human-divine relationship, philosophy of halakhah and mitzvot, covenant, faith, post-holocaust theology and Jewish peoplehood.

This course will survey the variety of approaches to ta’amei ha-mitzvot by Jewish thinkers from the 9th through the 16th centuries. Among the rabbinic positions discussed will be those of: R. Saadya Gaon, R. Bahya ibn Pakuda, Maimonides, R. Judah Halevi, R. Hasdai Crescas, Nahmanides, and the Maharal of Prague.

Text-based study of the thought of Maharal of Prague and the influence of his work.

This course focuses on depictions of the divine will in Jewish texts throughout the generations. It considers the nature of the divine will, its role in creation, how the divine will both complicate and simplifies the problem of evil, its relationship to Halakhah, and the question of how much room it leaves for human free will. Primary texts to be studied include biblical and Second Temple texts (Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo) and sources from Hazal; a variety of medieval philosophical texts; kabbalistic works and Hasidic texts; and various other modern and contemporary perspectives.

This text-based course examines the approaches of a select group of medieval and modern Jewish thinkers to the classical problem of theodicy: How can a good Gd allow for the evil and suffering that human beings experience in the world? Readings will be drawn from Saadya Gaon, Maimonides, the Zohar, and the writings of R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik and R. Eliezer Berkowitz.

A survey of major themes in the treatment of ethical issues as found in Jewish sources. Topics include the autonomy of ethics, the relationship of halakhah to ethics, supererogatory behavior, imitatio dei, Jewish models of moral perfection, and applied moral problems such as lifeboat ethics, capital punishment and war. Emphasis is placed on the methodology of Jewish ethics as a discipline, and on close reading of sources, which include selections from biblical, talmudic, midrashic, halakhic, philosophic and ethical works.

Analysis of a selected topic in medieval or modern Jewish philosophy through readings of primary sources. Sample topics include: Nature and Miracle in Medieval Jewish Philosophy; Simple Faith and Sophisticated Faith: Rabbi Saadiah Gaon and Rabbi Moses Taku; The Writings of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik.

A systematic and comparative study of the exegetical methods of medieval Jewish Bible commentators, including Rashi, Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, Radak, Nahmanides, and Gersonides. Attention is paid to exegesis as a mirror of intellectual history.

A systematic, comparative study of the exegetical methods of Abarbanel, Sforno, Rabbi Hayyim ibn Attar and Rabbi Elijah Gaon of Vilna.

A systematic, comparative study of the exegetical methods of R. Kalonymus Kalman Epstein, Malbim, R. Jacob Zevi Meklenburg, Neziv, R. David Zevi Hoffman and R. Meir Simcha ha-Kohen.

An examination of issues concerning the chronological order of Biblical events and the juxtaposition of sections in the Torah, as analyzed by medieval Biblical exegetes. Attention to differences in emphasis and approach between midrashic literature and medieval commentaries.