Jews and the Nation-State

Course Number

H&G15-10-Tue2

Study Group Leader (SGL)

Steven Sass

Location

This course will take place in person at 60 Turner Street. The room will be equipped with a HEPA air purifier.

10-Week Course

March 11 - May 20 (No Class April 15)

Description

Nation-states are recent entrants on the world historical stage. Only since the democratic revolutions of the late eighteenth century have nation-states emerged as the standard form of political organization. Based on the concept of natural rights, these states transferred sovereignty from dynastic kings to the people of the nation – to the “demos” in the term “democratic.” 

For Jews, this transition brought miraculous deliverances and catastrophic horrors.  Jews had lived in exile for 2000 years in communities granted specific rights, limitations, and protections by kings, dukes, and the like.  The nation-state emancipated Jews to participate in an increasingly rich and compelling national society.  But Jews remained a distinct national minority, lacking dynastic protections against an oftentimes hostile populace.   

Yossi Klein Halevi observed that Jews in exile had two great hopes and one great fear, and all three materialized in the age of the nation-state.  They had hoped for a home in the diaspora where they could freely live as Jews.  Halevi claims they found this home in the United States.  They had hoped to re-establish Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel, and they realized this hope in 1948, with the creation of a Jewish nation-state.  And they feared a horrific genocide should the antisemites rise up and kill them – which they experienced in Eastern Europe and the Holocaust. 

To better understand these outcomes and the Jewish people's future political prospects in a nation-state system, this course will examine the histories and Jewish experience in the U.S., French, Polish, Iraqi, and Israeli nation-states.

Group Leadership Style

More facilitated discussion than lecture.

Course Materials

Some of the reading will be provided on the course website. In addition we will read the following books:

Jill Lepore, This America. Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address 

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Part I: Anti-Semitism.

Jeffrey Veidlinger, In the Midst of Civilized Europe

Benny Morris, Righteous Victims.

The total cost of books can be kept below $55  by purchasing used books from on-line sellers, such as Abebooks or Thriftbooks

Preparation Time

Enough time to read about 125 pages a week.

Biography

Steven Sass has a Ph.D. in American History from The Johns Hopkins University. He was an Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College and, in retirement, taught Writing in Economics at Brandeis University. Sass authored or co-authored seven books and numerous articles and issue briefs and was the founding editor of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s Regional Review.