HIST 236 Jewish Life in Europe

This course covers the ruptures and changes which characterized Jewish life in Europe for over two thousand years. However, we will focus on the social, political, religious, and economic encounters between Jews and other European peoples in the modern period. To this end, the course will encompass topics such as: early migrations under the Roman Empire, Medieval scholarship and persecution, efflorescence in the Muslim Iberian period, the birth of Ashkenaz, the Spanish Inquisition, shtetl life, Jewish Enlightenment, urbanization, secularism and the rise of nationalisms, Hasidism, the Holocaust, and postwar Jewish life up to today. Readings will consist of primary and secondary material.