Jewish Studies | Current Students
Summer 2008 Distance Learning Seminar
July 13-18, 2008
Schedule of Offerings
Morning Courses
3002 Jewish Practices
(3 quarter hours (qh)) [MSJS/MSJE Core Course]
Dr. Peter Haas
Sunday 2-4:30 pm
Monday-Thursday 9 am-1 pm
Friday 9-11 am
This course provides an important and sophisticated overview of the theological meaning, historical development, major liturgical characteristics, particular ritual practices, and various local customs related to the major and minor holydays of the Jewish liturgical year and the various phases of the Jewish life cycle (birth, bar/bat mitzvah, marriage, divorce, conversion, and death).
3006 Modern Judaism
(3 qh) [MSJS/MSJE Core Course]
Dr. Gil Graff
Sunday 2-4:30 pm
Monday-Thursday 9 am-1 pm
Friday 9-10:30 am
For over two hundred years, Jews have been living in an era of “Modern Judaism.” This course explores the major forms or “movements” of Modern Judaism, particularly in Europe and in the United States, including: Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Neo-Orthodox Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism. Besides tracing the histories and ideologies of these movements, we will also examine the unique approaches of major thinkers associated with them. We will, as part of this exploration, also consider the emergence of Zionist ideologies as expressions of Modern Judaism.
3152 Women in the Bible
(3 qh)
Dr. Rachel Dulin
Sunday 2-4:30 pm
Monday-Thursday 9 am-1 pm
Friday 9-11 am
Biblical literature reflects the active role that women played in the society of ancient Israel. We will investigate: who composed and preserved these texts, and why; which female voices emerged from a male-centered society that echo in the biblical text; what impact did women have on the political life, the judicial system, the economy and the family structure in the world of biblical Israel?
3315 Contemporary Dilemmas in Jewish Communal Service
(3 qh)
Dr. Hal M. Lewis
Sunday 2-4:30 pm
Monday-Thursday 9 am-1 pm
Friday 9-11 am
Today, Jewish communal leaders – lay and professional – find themselves in a world that has changed radically from a generation ago. Sociological, demographic, and cultural shifts pose significant challenges for those who work within the organizational infrastructure of the American Jewish community. This class will look at the impact of such changes in four areas – intermarriage, Israel-Diaspora relations, philanthropy, and affiliations/connections - and some of the ways that contemporary Jewish groups are responding to them.
5504 Jewish Living
(3 qh) [DSJS Core Course]
Dr. Byron Sherwin
Sunday 2-4:30 pm
Monday-Thursday 9 am-1 pm
Friday 9-11 am
[This core course is required for all DSJS students and may also be open to advanced MSJS/MSJE students with prior permission from the instructor.]
Throughout history, Jews have articulated and expressed their understandings of Judaism, Jewish identity, and the socio-political role of Jews in society in diverse ways and by means of a wide variety of patterns of individual and social behavior. After an extensive review of changing religious, moral and socio-political views and behavioral patterns in modern and contemporary Jewry—especially in America, Israel and Europe—discussion and analysis then turns to pre-modern Jewry, i.e., in the biblical, Talmudic, and especially the medieval period. Issues examined will include Jewish attitudes, views, and behavioral patterns, regarding ethics, law (religious and civil), rationales for religious observance (ta'amei ha-mitzvot), communal structures and power distribution, and, the relationship of Jews vis-a-vis the "dominant" culture and society in which they live. Specific issues discussed will also include changing patterns of religious and social attitudes and behavior, especially in modern times, as they relate to Passover and Hanukkah observance, celebration of Bar/t Mitzvah, social action, and Jewish family life.
Afternoon Courses
3004 The Rabbinic Mind
(3 qh) [MSJS/MSJE Core Course]
Dr. Victor Mirelman
Monday-Thursday 2-6:30 pm
Enter the intellectual world of the talmudic rabbis. This course examines the distinctive “agendas” of biblical and rabbinic Judaism, the rabbinic concept of the “oral” tradition and its place in Judaism as it relates to the question of “authority” in Judaism. We will explore the central texts (including the nature, components, and development of mishnaic, talmudic, midrashic, and extracanonical rabbinic literature) and theological issues (such as God, evil, revelation, human nature, sin and repentance, the people of Israel, divine/human relations, and eschatology) of the rabbinic period. The ideologies of various Jewish religious groups in late antiquity, e.g., Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes will be described as will encounters between Judaism and early Christianity. We will examine how the destruction of the Second Temple and the Second Jewish Commonwealth served as “formative” events for the history of rabbinic and subsequent Judaism.
4142 War and Peace in the Hebrew Bible
(3 qh)
Dr. Leonard Greenspoon
Monday-Thursday 2-6:30 pm
Certainly, the overall vision or message of the Hebrew Bible is "peace" (with the word "shalom" understood as "completeness" or "wholeness"). Nonetheless, much of the text of the Hebrew Bible is given over to warfare—from hand-to-hand combat to pitched battles. Such material is found in narratives, laws, prophets, and Psalms. There are discussions of how war should be fought, and descriptions (sometimes quite vivid) of how wars were fought. There are theological and ideological as well as strategic and political considerations. In this course, we will look at representative passages from all parts of the Hebrew Bible that deal with War and with Peace. We will begin by a close reading of the text itself. We will also examine this material within its Ancient Near Eastern context, bringing in archaeological discoveries wherever possible. We will consider how key passages have been understood within the Jewish tradition and ways in which this material has been considered relevant to contemporary circumstances.
4211A Introduction to Aramaic
(3 qh)
Dr. Bernard Grossfeld
Monday-Thursday 2-6:30 pm
[Pre-requisite: at least one year of biblical Hebrew]
The Aramaic language, which is a sister language of Hebrew, was spoken by the Jewish people for about a thousand years from 500 BCE to 500 CE. Introduction to Aramaic starts with the dialect of biblical Aramaic contained in the portions of Ezra and Daniel. This course will investigate the main grammatical characteristics of biblical Aramaic and its cognate traits to biblical Hebrew. We conclude with a look at some well-known Aramaic texts found in Jewish liturgy.
4419 History and Philosophy of Jewish Education
(3 qh)
Dr. Elliot Lefkovitz
Monday-Thursday 2-6:30 pm
A survey of Jewish views on education from biblical times to the present. We will focus on the reading, analysis, and interpretation of a variety of key classical and contemporary texts. A major focus of discussion will be: what has changed and what has remained constant insofar as the goals, objectives, content, methods, and agents of Jewish education are concerned.
5346 Jewish Historiography
(3 qh) [DSJS Core Course]
Dr. Dean Bell
Monday-Thursday 2-6:30 pm
[This core course is required for all DSJS students and may also be open to advanced MSJS/MSJE students with prior permission from the instructor.]
How and why have Jews engaged history? What meaning does history have for Judaism and how has Jewish historiography reflected the changing position of Jews and Judaism? While this course will explore the full range of Jewish historiographical writing, the primary focus will be upon the early modern and modern development of formal Jewish historiography. Steeped in the culture of the Renaissance and responsive to the calamity of the Spanish Expulsion, many scholars have argued, Jews first began to write formal history. After an examination of the complex and creative ways in which Jews engaged history throughout the early modern period, the course turns to the development of modern Jewish historiography after the beginning of the nineteenth century. Modern Jewish historical writing addressed internal Jewish concerns and perspectives, while navigating through and engaging with non-Jewish historical currents. Among the important Jewish historians to be studied will be: Azaria de Rossi, David Gans, Nathan of Hannover, Heinrich Graetz, Simon Dubnow and Salo Baron.
Evening Courses
4175 Varieties of Judaism in Late Antiquity
(1.5 qh)
Dr. Gary Porton
Monday-Thursday 7-9:45 pm
This course will explore various types of Judaism from the end of the biblical period until the beginning of Islam. Among the topics covered will be the Samaritans, the Jews of Elephantine, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the zealots, the Jews of the Dead Sea Sect, the Jews of the synagogues, the Jews of the Hellenistic world, the early followers of Jesus of Nazareth, converts to Judaism, and the rabbis. The course will include discussion of some texts in translation and is a perfect complement or follow up to the Rabbinic Mind.
4499 Drop-In Independent Study: Holocaust Education
(1.5-3 qh)
Dr. Elliot Lefkovitz
Varying individual appointments
Those students wishing to research and write a paper focusing on some aspect of the Holocaust are invited to meet with the instructor to discuss specific interests in the area of Holocaust studies and formulate a topic for an independent study project. The subject might deal with any one of the following categories of Holocaust participants: perpetrators, victims, bystanders, resisters, rescuers, liberators, or survivors. Students might choose to examine one of the key historiographical questions relating to the Holocaust such as: the uniqueness of the Holocaust, the origins of the Final Solution, the motivations of the killers, Polish behavior towards Jews during the Holocaust, Raoul Hilberg and his critics: the question of the extent of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust, the possibilities of rescue of Jews during the Holocaust, the response of the American Jewish community to the Holocaust, the motivations of gentile
rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust or the connection between the Holocaust and the birth of the State of Israel. The paper could focus on research into some as yet unexplored family member's Holocaust experience, the question of how the Holocaust has been remembered in the United States or in Israel or salient pedagogical issues in Holocaust instruction. Students may wish to explore the impact of gender studies on Holocaust understanding or the impact of the Holocaust on Jewish theology. There are, in addition, possibilities for examining some aspect of Holocaust literature or the depiction of the Holocaust in film. In sum, there is a wide range of topics from which to choose. The proposed length of the paper will be a key determinant in the amount of credit received.
return to top