Course Offerings

MORNING COURSES

Sunday 12 pm-2 pm and
Monday-Thursday 8:30 am-12:30 pm

5346 Jewish Historiography
[DSJS Core] (3 qh)
Rabbi Dr. Victor Mirelman

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? This course explores the full range of Jewish historiographical writing, from the Bible to contemporary and postmodern reflections on history. Particular attention will be given to the development of formal Jewish historiography since the 16th century, with emphasis on the 19th century. 

4182S Maimonides: Conservative and Radical
[Masters Concentration and Elective; DSJS Text or Elective] (3 qh)
Dr. Edward Breuer

Maimonides was unquestionably one of the most important Jewish thinkers and writers of the medieval period, perhaps the single greatest Jewish scholar of the post-Talmudic era. Legist, physician, ethicist, philosopher, rabbi—there was no area of Jewish life and thought left untouched in his work. This course offers a broad sweep through his writings, from his early commentary to the Mishnah to his philosophical magnum opus, The Guide of the Perplexed. Students will gain an appreciation of the complexity and profundity of his thought, confronting a genius both proudly conservative and courageously radical.

AFTERNOON COURSES

Sunday 2:15 pm-4:15 pm and
Monday-Thursday 1:30 pm-5:30 pm

5504 Jewish Living
[DSJS Core] (3 qh)
Rabbi Dr. Byron Sherwin

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 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, as well as the relationship of Jews vis-a-vis the "dominant" culture and society in which they live. Specific issues discussed will 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.

4165 Midrash Seminar
[Masters Concentration and Elective; DSJS Text or Elective] (3 qh)
Rabbi Dr. Vernon Kurtz

In this course we will use the concept of Midrash to look at aspects of Biblical literature through the eyes of the rabbis and their literature. We will attempt to understand its mode of interpretation and study aspects of both Halakhic (legal) Midrash and Aggadic (non-legal) Midrash in order to amplify our understanding of the role of the rabbis in interpreting text and in setting parameters for Jewish theology, law, and interpretive imagination. The course will include background readings, text study, and the ability to create modern Midrashim that will challenge us to look at the Biblical text anew as we study our sources.

ONLINE/EVENING COURSES

Sunday 5:30 pm-8:30 pm and
Monday-Thursday 6:30 pm-8:45 pm
with additional interactive coursework
before and after the seminar

3504 From Renaissance to Enlightenment: Early Modern Jewry
[Masters Core, Concentration and Elective; DSJS Elective] (3 qh)
Dr. Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern

In 1492, the Spanish Catholic Kings issued a decree that banished Jews from the Iberian Peninsula but allowing those who converted to stay. From 1789 to 1791, the French Revolutionary Parliament accepted Jews as legal citizens ushering in the era of Jewish emancipation. This course explores three centuries of radical changes that triggered the rise of more tolerant political and religious treatment of and attitude toward Jews. We will concentrate on the following major issues: early modern era of mercantilism that reshaped the Jewish community economically and culturally; the legalization of the process of readmission of Jews to urban centers from which they were expelled in medieval times; the spread of Jewish mysticism and the rise of Jewish religious revivalist movements; the impact of French Enlightenment on the rise of modern Jewish thought; the formation of Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jewish identity; and the revolutionary upheavals in Netherlands, Britain, and France that triggered the process of emancipation that bolstered Jewish integration into the fabric of European society.

3392 Evolving 20th-Century Identities of American Jews as Seen Through Film
[Masters Concentration and Elective; DSJS Elective] (3 qh)
Dr. Elliot Lefkovitz

American Jewish identity has been shaped by the interaction and tension between traditional Jewish beliefs and values and those of 20th American society. The challenges of acculturation and assimilation posed by this society are reflected in American film, the most popular twentieth-century art form. Through the use of a variety of film excerpts, presented chronologically, this course will examine what film in 20th-century America can tell us about American Jewish identity. Since cinema is responsive to changes in social perception, it can also tell us about American society's perceptions of Jews. An overview of those political, socio-economic, and social psychological forces that helped shape American Jewish identity in the 20th century will be presented as context for discussion of the films.

March 2012 Seminar Faculty

Edward Breuer, a native of Montreal, received his PhD at Harvard University. He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Loyola University Chicago, and is currently at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His main area of research and publication is modern Jewish history, with a focus on the German-Jewish Enlightenment, and an additional focus on Jewish approaches to the Bible in the modern era. He has published extensively, and is currently working on a number of volumes on the writings of Moses Mendelssohn.

Vernon Kurtz is the Rabbi of North Suburban Synagogue Beth El in Highland Park, Illinois, an 1,100-family Conservative congregation, and a long-standing faculty member at Spertus. He was born in Toronto, Canada, received his BA from York University, his MA and Rabbinic Ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary, and his Doctor of Ministry degree from Chicago Theological Seminary. He also received a Doctor of Divinity degree (Honoris Causa) from the Jewish Theological Seminary. Rabbi Kurtz currently serves as President of MERCAZ Olami, the World Zionist organization of the Conservative Movement. He is also a member of the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency and serves as co-Chairman of its FSU committee. He is a past President of the Rabbinical Assembly and was a member for many years of the Rabbinical Assembly Committee on Jewish Law and Standards. Currently, he serves as a member of the Leadership Council of Conservative Judaism. He has authored teshuvot for the Law Committee and has published articles in many periodicals and books. Currently he is a Hartman Rabbinic Fellow.

Elliot Lefkovitz is Spertus Professor of Jewish History, Holocaust Studies, and Jewish Education. A veteran Jewish educator who has served as director of a number of Jewish religious schools, he uniquely combines scholarship with pedagogy. Professor Lefkovitz received his PhD from the University of Michigan and has published studies on modern Jewish history, Jewish education, and Holocaust survivors, and has also taught for many years at Loyola University-Chicago.

Tikva Meroz-Aharoni is Lecturer of Contemporary Hebrew Literature Comparative Literature and Ancient Literature at Ashkelon Academic College, an extension of Bar-Ilan University. She earned a PhD from Columbia University in Middle Eastern Languages and Culture and Hebrew and Comparative Literature. She has written numerous articles and edited several monographs, including, most recently, 90 Years of Hebrew Love Poetry (2009).

Victor Mirelman is Professor of Jewish History at Spertus. Previously, Dr. Mirelman taught at The Hebrew University, Columbia University, and The Jewish Theological Seminary. Ordained by The Jewish Theological Seminary, he received his PhD from Columbia University. He is a leading expert in the history of the Jews in Latin America and published a definitive history of the Jews of Argentina.

Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern is Crown Professor of Jewish History and Director of the Crown Family Center for Jewish Studies at Northwestern University. He received a PhD in comparative literature from Moscow University and a PhD in Modern Jewish History from Brandeis University. He has been a Rothschild Fellow at Hebrew University (Jerusalem) and an Associate Fellow at The Davis Center for Russian Studies at Harvard University. He has edited books and published numerous articles in comparative literature and Jewish history. Among his book publications are: Jews in the Russian Army (1827—1917): Drafted into Modernity (Cambridge University Press), The Anti-Imperial Choice: the Making and Unmaking of the Ukrainian Jew (Yale University Press), and Lenin’s Jewish Question (Yale University Press).

Byron Sherwin is Distinguished Service Professor and Director of Doctoral Programs at Spertus. He served for many years as Vice President for Academic Affairs. He was ordained a Rabbi by the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he was a protégé of Abraham Joshua Heschel. Dr. Sherwin received his PhD from The Committee on the History of Culture of the University of Chicago. His fields of interest are Jewish theology, ethics, mysticism, education, and Holocaust studies. He is the author or editor of 26 books and over 150 articles, including Toward a Jewish Theology, Jewish Ethics for the 21st Century, Sparks Amidst the Ashes: The Spiritual Legacy of Polish Jewry, and Golems Among Us: How a Jewish Legend Can Help Us Navigate the Biotech Century.