Spring 2021
THEO2260/GERM 2160: MW, 3-4:15 PM
Syllabus
Class Notes
📖 Simon Noveck, ed., Contemporary Jewish Thought: A Reader, 2007. First Ben Yehuda Press Edition. ISBN 9780978998066
📖 Martin Buber, I and Thou, ISBN 9780684717258
📖 Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State, ISBN 9780486258492
📖 Other readings at Canvas to be printed and brought to class
Modern Jewish Thought
| 📖 Primary Literature (read as homework) 📌 Secondary material to be covered in class (Students will be responsible for citing the material on exams. If citing in essays, students should cite more precisely with author and page number.) ✎ 1-2 page critical response (write) 📥 3-4 page essay (write) 👓 speaker |
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| Date | Assignments are due on the date to the left. |
| Week 1 | INTRODUCTION, SPINOZA |
| Mon, February 1 | 📌 Spinoza's excommunication (herem) |
| Wed, February 3 | 📖 Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (excerpts, Preface, Ch. 3, Ch. 17 + skim selection of your choosing p. 19-30, 71-88, 287-315 (56 pages)) 📌 Willi Goetschel, Spinoza’s Modernity: Mendelssohn, Lessing, and Heine (2004, excerpt) |
| Week 2 | Shabbtai Zvi & False Messiahs of the 17th century |
| Mon, February 8 | 📖 Gershom Scholem, Redemption through Sin (1936 [1971]), 78-141, (63 pages) |
| Wed, February 10 | 📖 The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln, transl. Marvin Lowenthal (Ch. 3, 40-65) ✎ 1-2 page critical response (write) |
| Woche 3 | Mendelssohn & 18th-19th century Emancipation |
| Mon, February 15 | 📖 David Sorkin, Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious Enlightenment (1996) Intro, Ch. 8-9 (41 pages) 📖 Primary documents: Frederick II, Charter Decreed for the Jews of Prussia (1750) + Mendelssohn on Michaelis (7 pages) 👓 Tomer Mangoubi, Karaite Judaism |
| Wed, February 17 | 📖 Moses Mendelssohn, Jerusalem (1783), Ch. 2, 50-103 (53 pages) |
| Week 4 | Reform Judaism, 19th century |
| Mon, February 22 | 📖 Susannah Heschel, Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus (1998) Ch. 1, 23-49 (27 pages) 📖 Reform Judaism primary documents (The Jew in the Modern World, 1980) 145-168 (24 pages) |
| Wed, February 24 | Orientalism 📖 John M. Efron, German Jewry and the Allure of the Sephardic (2015) Ch. 3, 112-160 (49 pages) 📌 Pittsburgh Reform Platform, 1885 📌 Ivan Davidson Kalmar and Derek J. Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, (2005, Intro.) ✎ 1-2 page critical response (write) |
| Week 5 | Zionism, 20th century |
| Mon, March 1 | 📖 Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State (1896), Preface - Ch. 3, 67-122 (54 pages) |
| 🚫 Mid-Semester Break—no class | |
| Thurs, March 4 | Mid-Semester Make-Up 📖 Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State (1896), Ch.4 - Conclusion, 123-157 (35 pages) 📌 Michael Löwy, Redemption and Utopia: Jewish Libertarian Thought in Central Europe (1992, excerpts) |
| Week 6 | |
| Mon, March 8 | 📖 Abraham Isaac Kuk, including "The Land of Israel," "The Rebirth of Israel," "The Experience of Mysticism" (Noveck, 95-128) 34 pages 📖 Todd Presner, “Clear Heads, Solid Stomachs, and Hard Muscles” (2003, 28 pages) |
| Wed, March 10 | Messianism in Secular Thought 📖 Walter Benjamin, “Task of the Translator,” “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," “Theses on the Philosophy of History” (Illuminations, 1968) 69-82, ,219-254, 255-266 (62 pages) 📖 Walter Benjamin, “Theologico-Political Fragment,” 312-313 (2 pages) |
| Week 7 | |
| Mon, March 15 | 📖 Walter Benjamin/Gershom Scholem, The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, 1932–1940 📌 Hannah Arendt, “Introduction,” in Illuminations (1955) 📥 Essay on Messianism. |
| Wed, March 17 | 📖 Martin Buber, I and Thou (1923) First Part, 51-85, 33 pages |
| Week 8 | Buber |
| Mon, March 22 | 📖 Martin Buber, I and Thou (1923), Second - Third Part 87-144, 58 pages |
| Wed, March 24 | 📖 Martin Buber, I and Thou (1923), Third Part 144-168, 25 pages ✎ 1-2 page critical response |
| Week 9 | |
| 🚫 Passover—no class |
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| Wed, March 31 | 📖 Martin Buber, including The Word “God,” God and the World’s Evil, Jewish Renaissance (Noveck, 243-275) 33 pages 📖 Michael Brenner, Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany (1996, excerpts) |
| Woche 10 | Rosenzweig |
| Mon, April 5 | 📖 Franz Rosenzweig, Star of Redemption (1921, excerpts) |
| Wed, April 7 | 📖 Franz Rosenzweig, including On Jewish Learning, Hebrew Language, The Builders: Concerning the Law (Noveck, 213-236) 24 pages 📖 Siegfried Kracauer, “Those Who Wait,” in The Mass Ornament 📌 Naomi Seidman, Faithful Renderings (2006, excerpt) |
| Week 11 | Susman |
| Mon, April 12 | 📖 Margarete Susman, "God the creator". In: Nahum N. Glatzer (Ed.), The Dimensions of Job: A Study and Selected Readings. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2002 (originally published by Schocken Books, 1969). ISBN 9781592440061. p. 86-92 (7 pages) |
| Wed, April 14 | 📖 Yael Almog, “Jewish Diaspora and the Stakes of Nationalism: Margarete Susman’s Theodicy” Religions 10, no. 2 (2019), 103-112. (10 pages) 📖 Margarete Susman, “On Franz Rosenzweig's The Star of Redemption", translated by Joachim Neugroschel. In: Arthur A. Cohen (ed.), The Jew, Essays from Martin Buber's Journal Der Jude, 1916-1928. |
| Week 12 | 📥 Essay on Jewish Statism, peoplehood. |
| Mon, April 19 | Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism |
| Wed, April 21 | 📖 Passover haggadot (Course Reserves, Handout) ✎ Prepare for Essay 3 by completing handout (Canvas) |
| Week 13 | |
| Mon, April 26 | 📖 Kaufmann Kohler, including "Evolution and Religion," "The Nature and Purpose of Prayer," "Mission of Israel" (Noveck, 293-323) 31 pages Psychoanalysis of Jewish Theology 📌 Sigmund Freud, Moses and Monotheism (1939, excerpt) 📌 Yosef Yerushalmi, Freud's Moses (1993, Introduction) |
| Wed, April 28 | 📖 Mordechai Kaplan, including "An Approach to Jewish Religion," "A Conception of God," "The Social Structure of American Jewish Life" (Noveck, 329-361) 33 pages ✎ First page of Final Essay due |
| Week 14 | Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism / Feminist Jewish Theology |
| Mon, May 3 | 📖 Rachel Adler, Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive Theology and Ethics. Philadelphia and Jerusalem: 1998 (excerpts) |
| Wed, May 5 | Hasidism, 18th century 📖 The Religious Thought of Hasidism: Text and Commentary, Edited by Norman Lamm, Michael Scharf Publication Trust of Yeshiva University |
| Fri, May 14 | 📥 Essay 3 on Passover haggadot. Essay and makeup work due by 12pm noon. |