Winter 2019 Undergraduate Course Descriptions

 Description: This course provides an introduction to the beliefs, practices, and religious institutions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The first part of the course will introduce students to the religious communities that form within the religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It will also acquaint them with the various conceptualizations of God, revelation and interpretation of sacred texts found in these traditions. The second part of the course then outlines major ritualistic practices found in these religions and the plurality of grand narratives that arise from each one (i.e., how followers of each religion understand its mission and destiny). The final section of the course places these traditions in conversation with one another to discuss their responses to key issues like sexual morality, secularity, political organization and conflict.

Texts: Readings posted to MyCourses.

Evaluation: (tentative): 2, 1000 words papers (50%), final take-home exam (40%), short reading responses (10%).

Format: Lecture

 Description: This is a survey course that highlights mainly Christian Europe and the Americas. The contrasting developments among Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews, manifestations of messianic fervor, and the achievements and limits of Jewish autonomy form important themes in the course alongside the differences in the historical experience of Jews in different regions. Because this is a first-year History course, emphasis is placed on introducing students to the modes of inquiry associated with the discipline. 

Texts:  

1.    John Efron, Steven Weitzman, Matthias Lehmann, Joshua Holo, The Jews: A History, Pearson-Prentice-Hall,2^nd ed. 2014.
2.     Coursepack and assigned online readings.

Evaluation: 

1.    Attendance and participation in all class meetings. All reading assignment
2.    A Book Review worth 10% of the final grade.
3.    Three in-class tests 20 + 20 +10%  (=50%) of the final grade.
4.    Term Paper worth 40% of the final grade.

Format: Lecture

 Description: The objective is to master basic communication in Modern Hebrew language. Students will develop the four language skills of understanding, speaking, reading and writing through the acquisition of basic structures of the language, i.e., grammar, syntax, vocabulary, as well as idiomatic expressions, in order to be able to communicate in Modern Hebrew orally and in writing. Communicative activities, oral practice, written exercises and compositions will be assigned regularly, in order to help integrate skills and reinforce learning. In addition, because the acquisition of a modern language also entails awareness of the culture of its linguistic community, the students will become aware of cultural elements associated with the language.  

Texts:  Shlomit Chayat et al. Hebrew from Scratch, Part I + CD

Evaluation: 

48%  -   4  Class Tests (6%, 10%, 14%, 18%)
12%  -   Quizzes
12%  -   2  In-Class Essays
14%  -   Compositions
10%  -   Oral Presentation
4%  -   Class Participation 

Format: Lecture

 Description: The objective is to master basic communication in Modern Hebrew language. Students will develop the four language skills of understanding, speaking, reading and writing through the acquisition of basic structures of the language, i.e., grammar, syntax, vocabulary, as well as idiomatic expressions, in order to be able to communicate in Modern Hebrew orally and in writing. Communicative activities, oral practice, written exercises and compositions will be assigned regularly, in order to help integrate skills and reinforce learning. In addition, because the acquisition of a modern language also entails awareness of the culture of its linguistic community, the students will become aware of cultural elements associated with the language.  

Texts:  Shlomit Chayat et al. Hebrew from Scratch, Part I + CD

Evaluation: 

48%  -   4  Class Tests (6%, 10%, 14%, 18%)
12%  -   Quizzes
12%  -   2  In-Class Essays
14%  -   Compositions
10%  -   Oral Presentation
4%  -   Class Participation 

Format: Lecture

 Description: This course is a continuation of JWST 281 Introductory Yiddish I, and will help students to further develop their reading, writing, and speaking skills, and to continue their exploration of Yiddish culture. Course materials will include Yiddish fiction, poetry, songs, newspapers, and films. Occasional visits from native Yiddish speakers.

Texts: All of the course materials will be posted on the course website. 

Evaluation: Grading will be based on attendance and homework (40%), in-class quizzes (20%), a final artistic or research project (20%), and a final exam (20%). 

Format: Lecture

 Description: This course will explore the world of Jewish-themed documentary films. We will see how filmmakers in Canada, the US, Europe and Israel have used the lived reality of Jewish experience as a canvas for their documentary explorations. We will examine how Jewish identity is depicted across a wide spectrum of perspectives – related to variations in religious and national affiliations, cultural experience, the attachment to Israel, the connection to the Holocaust and the politics of gender and sexual orientation. We will try to understand how documentary films as “the creative treatment of actuality” function as an interface between reality “out there” and the original, personal perspectives of filmmakers. Students are encouraged to developed individual responses to the films as triggers for personal explorations of identity, Jewish or otherwise.

Texts: Course pack (available at McGill Bookstore)

Films: The Lady in No. 6 / Bonjour! Shalom! / Jews and Money Hollywoodism: Jews, Movies and the American Dream Night and Fog / Dark Lullabies / Baghdad Twist Trembling before G-d / Waltz with Bashir Promises / The “Socalled” Movie

Evaluation: 6 film reflections 500-750 words each 60% Final Paper 2500 - 3000 words 25% Class participation / Presentation 15%

Format: Seminar

 Description: In this course, we will look at how liberal Jewish thinkers over the last sixty years have imagined God, related to Jewish law and ritual, and responded to feminism and the founding of the state of Israel. Thinkers to be studied include Mordecai Kaplan, Martin Buber, Eugene Borowitz, Judith Plaskow, Arthur Green and Arthur Waskow.

Texts: selections, posted to MyCourses, from the thinkers studied in the course.

Evaluation: 2, 1000 words papers (40%), book review (40%), 100 word reading responses, attendance, participation (20%

Format: Seminar

 Description: The objective is to master communication in Modern Hebrew language.

Students will develop the four language skills of understanding, speaking, reading and writing through the acquisition of basic structures of the language, i.e., grammar, syntax, vocabulary, as well as idiomatic expressions, in order to be able to communicate in Modern Hebrew orally and in writing. Communicative activities, oral practice, written exercises and article analysis will be assigned in order to help integrate skills and reinforce learning. In addition, because the acquisition of a modern language also entails awareness of the culture of its linguistic community, the students will become aware of cultural elements associated with the language and the diversity of the Israeli society.

Texts: Shlomit Chayat et al. Hebrew from Scratch, Part I + CD

Evaluation: 

48% - 4 Class Tests (6%, 10%, 14%, 18%)
12% - Quizzes
12% - 2 In-Class Essays
10% - Compositions
10% - Oral Presentation
​8% - Class Participation

Format: Seminar

 Description: In this course, we will study in depth the two biblical texts named for women. Special attention will be given to the historical and cultural context, linguistic features, and literary analysis. We will also explore the images of women in these narratives in later rabbinic midrashim, medieval commentaries, modern biblical scholarship, art and literature. Hebrew proficiency is not required for this course.

Texts: • Oxford Jewish Study Bible (Book of Ruth and Book of Esther). Translations of traditional commentaries will be provided. TBA

Evaluation: TBA

Format: Lecture

 Description: We tend to think of Jews and Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa as enemies, not neighbours. This course examines the modern history of Jewish-Muslim relations beyond just conflict. Students will explore the interconnected and entangled worlds of Jews and Muslims –– from Morocco to Iraq –– as the two communities navigated colonialism, nationalism, war, and decolonization. Through close readings of a wide variety of primary sources (including letters, memoirs, fiction, music, film, and photography) and historical scholarship, we will approach Jewish-Muslim relations from a number of vantage points –– including politics and culture. In doing so, we will seek to challenge our assumptions about the ways in which Jews and Muslims lived together in the not too distant past.

Texts: TBA

Evaluation: TBA

Format: Lecture

 Description: This course explores the central problem of release from sin, and its various constructions in the penitential discourses of medieval Judaism. Primary sources will include selections from the Sufi inflected Jewish pietism of Bahya ibn Paquda, the Sefer Hasidim, the philosophical writings of Saadya Gaon and Maimonides, as well as the eschatological and mystical approaches to repentance in the kabbalah of Catalonia and Castile. Three types of analysis will guide students’ investigation of the medieval material: (1) an intellectual-historical analysis, which explores the historical relationships between the various phases and types of Jewish penitential discourse; (2) an inter-religious analysis, which correlates our medieval Jewish sources to contemporaneous Christian and Muslim parallels; and (3) a phenomenological analysis of forgiveness and repentance, which seeks to understand how our texts represent the basic structures of penitential experience. The course will conclude with a unit on the problems of secularizing penitential discourses, where we will read selections by 20th century figures who have reframed the discourses of pardon for contemporary thought.

Texts:

• Ezra ben Solomon of Gerona, Commentary on the Song of Songs: And Other Kabbalistic Commentaries (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1999).
• David Lambert, How Repentance Became Biblical (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).
• Moses Maimonides, The Book of Knowledge: Mishneh Torah, Vol. I, trans. Moses Hyamson (Jerusalem: Feldheim, 1981).
• Moses Nahmanides, Gate of Reward, trans. Charles Chavel (New York: Shilo Publishing House, 1983).
• Course Reader.

Evaluation: 

Attendance, Preparation & Participation (25%)
Reading presentation (15%)
Short composition I (15%)
Short composition II (20%)
Research paper (25%)

Format: Seminar

 Description: R. Nahman of Bratslav (1772-1810), a direct descendent of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the 18th century Hasidic revivalist movement of Hasidism, was in his lifetime the leader of a small, reviled, and of the most daring, influential, imaginative, and resonant religious thinkers and storytellers of the modern age. His “canonical” collection of Thirteen Tales, Sippurei Ma‘asiyot, is deemed a classic not only of Jewish, but also of world literature, while his two volumes of collected homilies (Likkutei Moharan) deal boldly and innovatively with some of the deepest challenges that modernity poses to religious belief, particularly the emergence of a new world from which God is seemingly absent. Faith and doubt, joy and despair, mystical and existentialist motifs, struggle together in its pages. This course will examine both his biography and his writings in attempt to take the measure of the person and to sketch his spiritual and personal profile. We will read his Thirteen Tales, translated by Arnold Band in the Classics of Western Spirituality edition and selections (in English translation) from his homilies. In addition, R. Nahman’s faithful disciple, R. Nathan of Nemirov, wrote two major biographical works, depicting the life and teachings of his master, Sihot Ha-Ran (Conversations of R. Nahman) and Hayyei Moharan (Life of Our Master, R. Nahman), which we will read as well in English translation. Finally, we will examine how leading Jewish thinkers, from Hillel Zeitlin and Martin Buber in the first half of the twentieth century, down to Arthur Green in our own day, have viewed and interpreted R. Nahman’s legacy.

Texts: TBA

Evaluation: 

Class Participation: 10%
Paper: An Analysis of one of R. Nahman’s Tales: 40%
​Paper: An Analysis of one of R. Nahman’s Homilies: 50%

Format: Seminar

 Description: The objective is to communicate on familiar topics in Modern Hebrew language. Students will develop the four language skills of understanding, speaking, reading and writing through the acquisition of the advanced structures of the language, i.e., grammar, syntax, vocabulary, as well as idiomatic expressions, in order to be able to communicate in Modern Hebrew orally and in writing. Communicative activities, oral practice, written exercises and compositions will be assigned regularly, in order to help integrate skills and reinforce learning. In addition, because the acquisition of a modern language also entails awareness of the culture of its linguistic community, the students will become aware of cultural elements associated with the language.

Texts: Edna Amir Coffin. Lessons in Modern Hebrew: Level II (2) Publisher: University of Michigan Press 

Recommended Text: Hebrew Dictionary (Oxford, Eng-Heb, Heb-Eng Dictionary, Kernerman – Lonnie Kahn) 

Evaluation: 

48%  -   4  Class Tests (6%, 10%, 14%, 18%)
12%  -   Quizzes
12%  -   2  In-Class Essays
14%  -   Compositions
10%  -   Oral Presentation
4%  -   Class Participation 

Format: Seminar

 Description: “In the entire thwarted and scarred history of modern Yiddish literature there is no chapter more tragic than that of Soviet Yiddish writers” (I. Howe-Ashes out of Hope)

The experience of sovietisation both fueled the hope for growth of Jewish and Yiddish society and culture and contributed to its destruction. An examination of this experience through novels and short fiction now available in English translation, provides us with a model for exploring the interrelationship between culture and politics. Focusing on fiction written before, during and after WW1, the Russian Revolution, to the late 1920s and early 1930s, this course will examine a generation of Yiddish writers whose writing explores the social world in which they live with sometimes with “naïve” enthusiasm a sometimes with fear and foreboding, and often with both Yiddish creativity will be examined from two perspectives: history and literature. Among topics to be discussed will be the effects: of political ideology, of censorship, on creative writings from without and from within.

Texts: Texts will include D. Bergelson, Der nister, I. Babel, M. Kulbak, P Markish D. Hofshteyn; Secondary sources will be provided in class.

Evaluation: class participation 10%; mid term essay 40%; Final essay 50%

Format: Seminar

Prerequisite: A year of Yiddish or permission of the instructor. ​

Description: Knowledge of the Yiddish language opens up an endless variety of excellent opportunities in literary, historical, and linguistic research, family history, artistic endeavors in music, theater, visual arts, and much more. This course is designed for students with some command of Yiddish who wish to acquire skills necessary for making the most of such opportunities and, at the same time, to further improve their Yiddish. We will be working with printed, handwritten, audio, visual and several other types of sources, and will conduct oral interviews with native Yiddish speakers. Many of the skills you will learn in this course will be applicable far beyond the field of Yiddish studies.

Texts: TBA

Evaluation: Grading will be based attendance and participation (10%) and three projects involving skills acquired in the course (10%, 30%, and 50%).

Format: Seminar

 Description: An introduction to the Hebrew Bible in English translation and its influence on later Jewish literature, and on Western civilization, both religious and secular, particularly in English-speaking countries, through translation.      The Bible, whose latest texts date from the late 1^st millennium BCE, determined the character of all Jewish literature thereafter, including rabbinic literature, medieval Jewish poetry, and modern Hebrew literature.  Yet, through Christianity, the Bible also had a decisive impact on European politics and culture, particularly in England and German-speaking lands, and this influence spread with the rise of imperialism from the Middle Ages until the modern period.    Particular attention will be paid to the Bible in England from the time of the Reformation until the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and in Jewish literature in the 19^th and early 20^th century.   The King James Bible of 1611 has a strong claim to being the most important book ever printed.   Coverdale’s translation of the Psalms in The Book of Common Prayer is certainly the most familiar English poetry – even more than Shakespeare – as it was incorporated into ceremonies of birth, marriage, and burial.     The idea of England as a ‘chosen people’, a ‘new Israel’, was adopted by most European countries and spread through much of the world with the rise of modern nationalism.    

Texts: from the Bible (JPS translation),  Spenser, Shakespeare,  Milton, Dryden, Bialik, Tchernichowsky, Joseph Roth, U.Z. Greenberg, Steinbeck, Achebe, Coetzee, and others. 

Evaluation: Grading will be based on three in-class exams, consisting of essays and commentaries on course texts (50%), and two long essays (50%).

Format: Seminar

 Description: The aim of this course is to expose students to the various aspects of contemporary Israeli society and culture through films, music and other media, as well as academic, journalistic, literary, art historical and dramatic texts (all texts are in Hebrew). 

Texts: TBA

Evaluation: 

40%    -        Essay   (1500 words min.)
30%    -        2 In-Class Essays
15%    -        2 quizzes
10%    -        Text Preparation Assignments    (to be marked at random)
​  5%    -        Class Participation and presentation  

Format: Seminar

 Description: An exploration of some of the central themes in Yiddish literature: religious faith and doubt; the role of fear––both awe of the divine and terror of the demonic; and the nature of good and evil. We will discuss Yiddish writers’ use of East European Jewish folklore, the influence of Christian culture, as well as the effects of secularization, mass emigration, and the Holocaust. Readings will include works by major Yiddish writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including I. L. Peretz, Sholem Aleichem, and Isaac Bashevis Singer.

​All readings in English.

Texts: The Book of Job (selections); Judah ben Samuel, The Book of the Pious; Elijah ben Solomon Abraham ha-Kohen of Smyrna, The Rod of Chastisement; The Mayse-Bukh; Sholem-Yankev Abramovitsh, The Mare; Nahman of Bratslav, “A Tale of a Rabbi and His Only Son”; S. Anski, The Dybbuk; I. L. Peretz, “Three Gifts” and other stories; Jacob Gordin, God, Man, and Devil; Esther Singer Kreitman, “The New World”; Isaac Bashevis Singer, Satan in Goray, “Zeidlus the Pope,” “Why the Geese Shrieked”; Israel Joshua Singer, Of a World That Is No More; Moyshe Kulbak, The Messiah of the House of Ephraim; Sarah Hamer-Jacklyn, “My Mother’s Dream”; Mirl Erdberg Shatan, “The Bagel Baker.” Note: Most of the texts will be available in PDF format on the course website.

Evaluation: Grading will be based on attendance and participation (10%), weekly reading responses (30%), a midterm paper/project (20%), and a final paper/project (40%).

Format: Lecture

 Description: This course will examine novels written by Jewish authors who have gained prominence in Canada and the USA in recent years. Among the issues to be discussed is: 1) the claim that without drawing on the immigrant experience American and Canadian Jewish writing suffers from a depletion of resources, from a thinning out of Jewish material, and 2) the claim that this writing has its own “signature”-it is no longer defined by the hyphenated definition Jewish American/ American Jewish or by an identity in crisis but by an attempt to redefine North American Jewish writing.

Texts: We will read works by David Bezmozgis, M Bukiet, Thane Rosenbaum, Nathan Englander, Steve Stern, M Chabon, Robert Majzels. Secondary resources will be provided in class.

Evaluation: class participation 10%, mid term essay 40%, final essay 50%​

Format: Seminar

 Description: The course will focus on “THE LEGAL THEORY OF MAIMONIDES,’’ and will explore the full range of both Maimonides’ halakhic (legal) and philosophical writings to determine his views regarding the following issues:

1. The Different Categories of Law
2. The meaning of Torah she- be`al Peh
3. On the Divine and the Human in Jewish Law
4. Perushim me-Kubbalim vs. Laws derived through the hermeneutical rules = (?) De-Oraita vs. De-Rabbanan
5. Rabbinic Legislation
6. The Authority of the Sages or On Putting Humpty-Dumpty Together Again
7. Halakhic vs. Extra-Halakhic Authority (Court in Emergency Situation, Prophet, and King)
8. Peshat vs. Derash and Peshat vs. Perushim me-Kubbalim
9. Peshat vs. zahir
10. Zaken Mamreh (the Rebellious Elder)
11. Bal Tosif (On Adding to the Law)
12. On Fixity and Change
13. Law and Equity
14. The Chain of Tradition
15. The Authority of the Talmud

Texts: Readings will be from Maimonides’ Commentary on the Mishnah; Book of Commandments; Mishneh Torah (Code of Law); Guide of the Perplexed; and Selected Letters and Responsa.

Readings will be from Maimonides’ Introduction to his Commentary on the Mishneh; Roots 1 and 2 of the Sefer ha-Mitzvot (Book of Commandments) and other relevant selections; the Introduction to the Mishneh Torah and selections from Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah (Laws of the Foundations of the Torah), Hilkhot Mamrim (Laws of Rebels), and Hilkhot Melakhim (Laws of Kings); Guide 1:71, 3: 34, 41; and Selected Responsa. While the focus of the course will be on Maimonides’ legal views, we will also compare his views with those of other major halakhic authorities, in particular, the Ramban’s (Nahmanides’) views as found in his critical glosses on the Book of Commandments. The texts will be in Hebrew with English translations provided, if necessary.

Evaluation: 

Class participation: 20%
Mid-Term Examination: 20%
​Paper or Take Home Final: 60%

Format: Seminar

 Description: This seminar re-examines the modern Sephardi Jewish experience during the last century of Ottoman rule and its aftermath. In light of the most recent historical scholarship, we will trace the paths of Jews in cities like Istanbul and Salonica as they navigated new forms of citizenship, new languages and technologies, new political ideologies, and new regimes. Special emphasis will be placed on daily life and culture.

Texts: TBA but include Sarah Abrevaya Stein's Extraterritorial Dreams: European Citizenship, Sephardi Jews, and the Ottoman Twentieth Century(University of Chicago Press, 2016) and Devin Naar's Jewish Salonica: Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece(Stanford University Press, 2016).

Evaluation:

20% Class participation
10% Attendance
15% In-class presentation
15% Reading responses
40% Final Research Paper

Format: Seminar

 Description: This course is an introduction to the depiction of poverty and changing images of the poor in literature from the time of the Bible until the modern age. From the time of the Industrial Revolution until World War II, and to a lesser extent afterwards, poverty was a major theme in Western literature, as a problem to be solved.   This literature was deeply influenced by Judaeo-Christian ethics, which defined the poor as a distinct group toward whom the better-off had responsibility.     Emphasis in this course is on the experience, through reading literary texts, of entering societies and moments in history far different from our own.   This course starts with biblical and talmudic literature on poverty, then moves to the modern period and the depiction of poverty in Jewish and non-Jewish literature, from the time of the French Revolution until World War II (1789-1939);  the course will conclude with works from developing countries since 1945.

Texts:

1. Biblical Origins of Western Views of Poverty
2. Industrial England: From Wordsworth to Dickens
3. France, from the Revolution to the Third Republic:  Hugo and Zola
4. Laying Totalitarian Russia Bare: the Humanization of Peasants in Turgenev and Chekhov
5. Jews in the Russian Pale of Settlement:  Psychological Degradation of Poverty in the Fiction of Mendele Mocher Sefarim
6. Hamsun and the Hunger Artist: Poverty and Aesthetics
7. Orwell: Poverty in Paris and London Between the Wars
8. Failures of Fascism: Mussolini, Carlo Levi and the Italian Peasantry
9. Capitalism under Fire: The Depression and Steinbeck  
​10.  Literature of poverty since 1945

Evaluation: Grades will be based on three essay exams to be written in class and  commentaries on course texts  (50%) and two long essays (50%). 

Format: Seminar

 Description: Although this course will emphasize the period referred to as "early modern" -  roughly the period between 1453 and 1789 - we will venture into the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as well.  A variety of topics and issues will be discussed including: the print revolution; absolutism; codification; kabbalah; Iberian inquisition and expulsion; commerce and early capitalism; tolerance and toleration; messianism and gender; did Jews have a Renaissance?; Ukrainian catastrophe; kabbalah; Jewish responses to the Reformation and more. To the extent possible the students' interests will configure the topics examined in depth. Discussions will focus on primary materials in English.

Texts: TBA

Evaluation: 

1.    Weekly  summary-evaluations of the assigned reading. These will be presented orally as well. Each written submission will be graded /10 and the best four  grades will be considered and will count for 40%
2.    Punctual completion of all reading assignments; attendance at class meetings. Students are expected to prepare for and participate in class discussion. The incentive for this will be the assignment of 10% of the final grade for such participation. 10%                                                                                          
3.   A substantial research paper (20 to 30 pp.) 50%                                                                                                    

PRESENTATIONS: This is a c10 minute discussion of a text, primary or secondary, presented to the class. The grade will be based on the written submission following oral presentation. The submission will normally be 2 to 4  pages in length.
RESEARCH PAPER: The research paper will be prepared in three stages, the first two of which, ideally, will be presented to the group and will benefit from comments by members of the seminar. The stages are:

1.    Initial formulation of the question and preliminary bibliography.
2.    First draft of the paper.
3.    Final version.

Format: Seminar