HIS 5010 Jew Contempry World
The twentieth century witnessed some of the most dramatic events to affect the Jewish People in its history, including mass murder; dramatic shifts in demography and geography across the world; and the radical redefinition of Jewish culture and politics. This course is concerned with developments and changes within world Jewry from the second half of the twentieth century to the present, that reflect the impact of those phenomena.
The course begins by describing, evaluating and interpreting the impact of three dramatic events on the lives of Jewish communities and Jewish identity: (1) in what ways did the traumatic destruction of the majority European Jewry affect world Jewry; (2) what were the fortunes of the large Jewish community remaining in the Soviet Union, its struggle for recognition and freedom, and the global campaign for Soviet Jewry that defined the second half of the century (3) how were Jewish communities in Arabic speaking countries of the Middle East and North Africa impacted by decolonization and local nationalist movements, resulting in the rise of new diasporas in France and Canada.
In addition to these continent-wide events, the course also explores the fortunes of Jewish life in apartheid South Africa, the changing fortunes of Jewish communities in liberal post war UK and Canada; and the global phenomenon of Chabad and the strengthening of neo-Jewish Messianism. In the cultural field, the course discusses the fate of Jewish languages of Yiddish and Ladino in the light of the historical events described earlier, as well as evaluating initiatives in the field of Jewish heritage and cultural preservation that have emerged in the last twenty years. Core.