University Bulletin (2018-2019)

YDSH 10a Beginning Yiddish
Meets for four class hours per week.
The first of a four-semester sequence, this course introduces basic Yiddish grammar. Students also develop reading, writing, and conversational skills. Yiddish songs, poetry, and folklore are incorporated throughout. Usually offered every year.
Ellen Kellman

YDSH 20b Continuing Yiddish
Prerequisite: YDSH 10a or permission of the instructor. Meets for four class hours per week.
Continues the study of grammar begun in YDSH 10a. Writing and speaking skills receive more emphasis than in the previous course, and students begin to build vocabulary and reading skills that will enable them to comprehend more complex texts. The history and culture of Eastern European Jewry are studied through Yiddish songs, films, and literature. Usually offered every year.
Ellen Kellman

YDSH 30a Intermediate Yiddish
[ fl wi ]
Prerequisite: YDSH 20b or permission of the instructor. Meets for four class hours per week.
Third in a four-semester sequence. Students continue to develop reading skills as they sample texts from Yiddish prose fiction, folklore, and memoir literature. Grammatical instruction is more contextualized than in the previous courses. Speaking and writing skills are strongly emphasized. Usually offered every year.
Ellen Kellman

YDSH 40b Advanced Intermediate Yiddish
[ fl hum ]
Prerequisite: YDSH 30a or permission of the instructor. Meets for four class hours per week.
The fourth in a four-semester sequence, this course is a continuation of YDSH 30a. Students discuss assigned texts in Yiddish. Written assignments emphasize the development of fluency and grammatical accuracy. Skills for using Yiddish in academic research are taught. Usually offered every year.
Ellen Kellman

YDSH 98b Independent Study
Usually offered every year.
Staff

NEJS 132b Against the Apocalypse: Jewish Responses to the Holocaust
[ hum ]
Provides an overview on the multifaceted Jewish responses to the Nazi destruction of European Jews in the years 1945-1961. Familiarizing students with Jews' historical, legal, cultural, political, religious and commemorative reactions to the Holocaust, it refutes the unwarranted claim of a postwar Jewish silence. Usually offered every second year.
Laura Jockusch

NEJS 134b Yiddish Culture in the Modern World
[ hum ]
An examination of the rise of modern Yiddish secular culture in Eastern Europe and North America with a focus on the literature it produced. Music, criticism, journalism, drama, film, and painting are also studied. Usually offered every third year.
Ellen Kellman

NEJS 135a The Modern Jewish Experience
[ hum ]
Themes include Enlightenment, Hasidism, emancipation, Jewish identity in the modern world (acculturation and assimilation), development of dominant nationalism in Judaism, Zionism, European Jewry between the world wars, Holocaust, the creation of the State of Israel, and contemporary Jewish life in America, Israel, and Europe. Usually offered every year.
ChaeRan Freeze or Eugene Sheppard

NEJS 142a Modern History of East European Jewry
[ hum ]
A comprehensive survey of the history (economic, sociopolitical, and religious) of the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe from the middle of the eighteenth century until World War II, with emphasis placed on the Jews of Poland and Russia. Usually offered every fourth year.
ChaeRan Freeze

NEJS 153a Between Ecstasy and Community: Hasidism in Jewish Thought and History
[ hum ]
Explores Hasidism, from the 18th century until today, as one of the dynamic forces in Jewish life, mixing radicalism and reaction, theology, storytelling and music, thick community and wild individualism, deep conformity and spiritual abandon. Usually offered every third year.
Yehudah Mirsky

NEJS 158b Yiddish Literature and the Modern Jewish Revolution
[ hum wi ]
Students with reading knowledge of Yiddish may elect to read the original texts.
Surveys and analyzes Yiddish fiction, poetry, and drama of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Readings include several works of the classic Yiddish writers, but the primary focus is on works by succeeding generations of modernist writers. Taught in English using texts in translation. Weekly additional section for students with advanced reading knowledge of Yiddish who elect to read some texts in the original. Usually offered every second year.
Ellen Kellman

NEJS 159b Classic Yiddish Fiction
[ hum wi ]
Reading and analysis of the major works of fiction and drama by the best Yiddish writers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with a focus on the role of literature in reconfiguring Jewish gender identities. Taught in English using texts in translation. Weekly additional section for students with advanced reading knowledge of Yiddish who elect to read some texts in the original. Usually offered every second year.
Ellen Kellman

NEJS 164a Judaism Confronts America
[ hum ]
Examines, through a close reading of selected primary sources, central issues and tensions in American Jewish life, paying attention to their historical background and to issues of Jewish law. Usually offered every second year.
Jonathan Sarna

NEJS 171a History Lessons: Teaching the Jewish Experience
[ hum ]
Using American Jewish History as a case study, this course examines why we teach history, what history means within a Jewish context, what we can learn from how history has been taught, and how history might be taught at various age levels and in different contexts. The course includes an oral history project component in cooperation with the Jewish Women's Archive. Usually offered every second year.
Jonathan Krasner

NEJS 181a Jews on Screen: From "Cohen’s Fire Sale" to the Coen Brothers
[ hum ]
Open to all students.
Survey course focusing on moving images of Jews and Jewish life in fiction and factual films. Includes early Russian and American silents, home movies of European Jews, Yiddish feature films, Israeli cinema, independent films, and Hollywood classics. Usually offered every second year.
Sharon Rivo

NEJS 221a Reading Yiddish Literary and Historical Texts
Prerequisite: YDSH 30a or 40b.
Examines modern Yiddish literary and historical texts. Introduces genres and texts of Yiddish literature and scholarship in modern Jewish history. Journalistic texts are studied to prepare students to conduct research using the Yiddish press. Grammatical concepts are reviewed as needed. Usually offered every year.
Ellen Kellman

NEJS 236b Jews of the Russian Empire
A discussion of Jewish life in the Polish lands, and the Jews under tsarist rule and Imperial rule, the confrontation of traditional Jewish community with modernity, the haskalah movement, the Jewish family, popular culture, anti-Jewish violence, the rise of new political and cultural movements, and emigration. Usually offered every third year.
ChaeRan Freeze