Spring 2008 Courses

COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

Religious Tradition and Faith

RELC/J 302: Faith on Trial: The Book of Job and Its Traditions
Martien Halvorson-Taylor
An examination of the biblical book of Job along with related texts - ancient, medieval, and modern - that allow us to establish the literary, theological and philosophical, traditions in which Job was composed and the literary, theological, and philosophical legacy it has created. Our study will cover ancient texts from Mesopotamia, biblical Wisdom Literature, early Jewish and Christian interpretations and retellings of Job, Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling, Kafka's The Trial, J.B. by MacLeish, the writings of liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez, and the etchings of William Blake. We will pay particular attention to the ways these works play off one another in literary form and expression and in their treatment of such themes as divine justice, human piety, the limits of human knowledge, and the nature of the divine-human encounter.

RELJ 309: Israelite Prophecy
Greg Goering
This course examines the phenomenon of prophecy in ancient Israel . We will read in translation most of the stories from the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament about prophets (Moses, Deborah, Samuel, Elijah, Elisha), as well as the books attributed to prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and The Twelve). Each primary text will be considered in its historical, cultural, and political contexts. In addition, the course analyzes Israelite prophecy in light of similar phenomena in the neighboring cultures of the ancient Near East and with regards to modern anthropological studies of shamanism. The end of the course considers the transformation of prophecy in the Second Temple period and examines the emergence of apocalypticism.

RELJ 331: Law in Judaism
Elizabeth Alexander
Jewish law has provided a primary framework for religious expression from biblical to modern times. Jews throughout the ages have asked: How does the law mediate between humans and God? Why adhere to laws that appear to have no basis in reason? Should the law be understood as universal or particularistic? In this course we will analyze classical legal sources in order to answer these and related questions; we will also survey medieval and modern responses to them.

RELJ 375: Scriptural Reasoning in Judaism
Peter Ochs
The first half of the course will examine how recent Jewish philosophy and theology has turned back to the study of sacred texts. The second half will examine how that turn has engendered another turn: to intensive dialogue with like-minded Christian and Muslim philosophers and theologians. The course will include various methods of study: one-on-one fellowship study, small group study, large group. It will require considerable reading in scriptural texts and in both classical and contemporary commentaries - philosophic and theological. There will be several papers and papers in place of exams. Students are advised to peruse these websites to taste the kind of work the course will undertake: the e-journal of textual reasoning (housed at uva); and the e-journal of scriptural reasoning (created at uva).

RELC/J 501: Genesis and Its Interpretation
Martien Halvorson-Taylor
An examination of the Book of Genesis and its subsequent interpretation. We will examine the literary artistry of the book -- the dramatic and tangled narrative that opens the Hebrew Bible -- by considering plot, characterization, and its compositional history. Using methods of modern biblical scholarship, we will further consider the book in its historical and religious context. And, finally, we will examine the early history of how the book was interpreted. Readings will include not only biblical texts, but other ancient Near Eastern compositions (the Enuma elish and the Gilgamesh epic) that shed light on Genesis, early biblical interpretation, and secondary scholarship on the history, literature and religion of Ancient Israel. [Advanced students in classical Hebrew may sign up for a translation component.] Permission of the instructor is required.

RELJ 520: Mishnah Seminar
Elizabeth Alexander
This course trains students to read Mishnah in the original language. Primary emphasis will be on giving students tools to decode the text and set the text in its appropriate historical and cultural contexts. Special attention will be paid to literary and legal aspects of the text. The Mishnah will also compared with parallels from contemporary compositions (the Tosephta and midrash halakhah). Secondary readings will expose students to the range of theoretical concerns raised in the interpretation of the Mishnah. We will address the following kinds of questions: What is the purpose of the Mishnah? Was the Mishnah written down or orally transmitted? How should a literary reading of the Mishnah proceed? What is the function of dispute in the Mishnah? How can we best use the Mishnah as a historical source in the reconstruction of early rabbinic Judaism?

History and Culture

HIEU 210: Jewish History II: The Modern Experience
James Loeffler
This course offers a general overview of modern Jewish history from the sixteenth century to the present, focusing on the political, social, religious, and cultural transformations of Jewish life and identity in this period. Major topics to be discussed will include the effects of the Spanish Expulsion, messianic religious movements, the French Revolution, the Jewish Enlightenment, political emancipation, acculturation, modern Jewish politics, immigration and the growth of the American Jewish community, anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, Zionism, the State of Israel and the Soviet Jewish emigration. In addition, we will examine the ongoing challenge of defining Jewish identity in the modern world (Are the Jews a nationality? An ethnic group? A religion?) and the larger questions of how to relate Jewish history to modern European, American, and Middle Eastern history. The main textbook for this course will be Howard Morley Sachar's A History of the Jews in the Modern World (2005). This will be supplemented with a variety of other scholarly articles and an extensive array of primary sources drawn chiefly from Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz's source book, The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History (1995). Requirements include three short papers in response to primary sources, a midterm exam, and a final exam. This is an introductory course that assumes no prior knowledge of Judaism or Jewish history. HIEU 210 follows HIEU 209, Jewish History II: The Ancient and Medieval Experience, though the two may be taken independently.

MUSI 213: Introduction to Jewish Musical Traditions
Joel Rubin
This course will provide an introduction to sacred and secular Jewish musical traditions as they have developed in Israel and in the various diaspora communities throughout the past 2,000 years. The texts will be drawn from a number of book chapters and articles on digital reserve which draw on writings from the literature of ethnomusicology and musicology, folklore, anthropology, sociology, Jewish studies, history and other fields. The course will use a case-study approach: concentrating on developments in Jewish musical traditions since the middle of the 19th century, it will focus on a small number of diverse traditions and styles within the framework of the three main groupings of Ashkenazic, Sephardic and Mizrakhi Jewry. Each unit will be supplemented by musical examples available on toolkit. When possible, field trips will be taken to internal communal events such as synagogue services and holiday celebrations, as well as to concerts and other public events. Attendance of at least one out-of-class event will be required. These will be announced during the course of the semester.

RELJ 339: Jewish Feminism
Vanessa Ochs
From ancient times to our own day, Jewish women have engaged with Jewish tradition, texts and practices appropriating, resisting and transforming them. In this course, we will study the strategies by which contemporary women in Judaism have created, and continue to create the conditions for increased spiritual empowerment, and will try to anticipate new directions. We will study major works and issues in contemporary American Jewish feminism from the mid-1960's to the present, concluding with the work of 20-something Jewish feminists. We will study how Jewish feminists and feminist scholars of Judaism have defined and legitimized the study of Jewish women's experience by tracing the impact of Jewish feminism on Jewish ritual practice, text study, prayer and theology.

MUEN 363: Klezmer Ensemble
Joel Rubin
Klezmer, originally the ritual and celebratory music of the Yiddish-speaking Jews of Eastern Europe, was brought to North America by immigrants around the turn of the last century. Since the 1970s, a dynamic revival of this tradition has been taking place in America and beyond. Klezmer's recent popularity has brought it far from its roots in medieval minstrelsy and Jewish ritual and into the sphere of mainstream culture. The traditional klezmer style presents the experienced instrumentalist with a range of technical challenges with its characteristic note bends, rubati, Baroque-style embellishments and other micro-improvisational techniques, opening up a world of expressive possibilities not available to them from either classical music or jazz. This music was passed on orally from generation to generation, and many of the ornaments which are so integral to the klezmer sound can only be approximated by Western staff notation - not to mention the patterns of improvised variation which are the cornerstone of the style. There will therefore be an emphasis on learning by ear as much as possible, but we will be using music in the form of lead sheets and other written instructional materials to supplement sound examples.

We will focus this semester on various traditions, including accompanying Yiddish dances, hasidic nigunim (songs of spiritual elevation), and the klezmer tradition of the Land of Israel, coordinated with special events on January 27-28 and March 30-31, and April 14, as well as more generally on the klezmer traditions of New York between the two world wars, and 19th century Eastern Europe. The purpose of the ensemble is to study and perform music from these traditions. Emphasis will be on learning by ear, improvisation within a modal context, and learning to develop a cohesive ensemble sound. Concentration, practice, and good attendance are required of each ensemble member.

Performances will take place on Jan. 27 (off-grounds), Mar. 30 (off-grounds), and Apr. 6 (Old Cabell Hall auditorium, 8 pm).

HIST 401: The Holocaust and the Law
Gabriel Finder
This course explores the pursuit of legal justice after the Holocaust. We will study legal responses to the Nazi genocide of Europe's Jews in Europe, Israel, and the United States from the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust to the present. We will examine the Nuremberg Trial, the Eichmann Trial, national trials of collaborators, legal efforts for restitution and the reclamation of Jewish property, and the recent Holocaust denial libel trial in England Irving v. Penguin Books and Lipstadt. Mindful of the postwar historical context, we will pose the question whether legal responses to the Holocaust have served justice on the perpetrators and delivered justice to not only the victims but also history and memory. In this vein, we will ask how the pursuit of legal justice after the Holocaust affects our understanding of the legal process.

Through the first half of the semester we will consider these issues in class. Assigned readings for this part of the course may include Michael R. Marrus, The Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, 1945-46: A Reader; Lawrence Douglas, The Memory of Judgment: Making Law and History in the Trials of the Holocaust; Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil; Stuart E. Eizenstat, Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor, and the Unfinished Business of World War II; Rebecca Wittmann, Beyond Justice: The Auschwitz Trial; and Deborah E. Lipstadt, History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving. The average weekly reading load is 150 pages.

For the remainder of the semester students will produce an original 25-page paper on some aspect of post-Holocaust trials that is based largely on primary sources. Students are required to develop their topics in consultation with the instructor and meet with him periodically while they are researching and writing their papers. During the course of the semester students will be expected to submit a bibliography for and an outline of their papers, as well as a first draft that a fellow student will critique in class (peer review). Grades will be determined on the basis of the bibliography, outline, and research paper as well as class participation. Active participation in class is expected.

This course fulfills the second writing requirement. Non-History Majors require the permission of the instruction to enroll.

RELG 539: Ethnographic Study of Jews
Vanessa Ochs
Ethnographers spend time among the population they study and write about in order to observe and interpret all events in context. This seminar, offers a critical introduction to both theory and research methodology, and provides a framework for thinking about Jews and Judaism from an anthropological perspective. We will study contemporary American Jewish experience primarily, making comparisons to Israel. Ethnographers whose work we will consider include Susan Sered, Riv-Ellen Prell, Stephanie Levin, Barbara Myerhoff, Lawrence Hoffman, Susan Kahn, Samuel Heilman, Jonathan Boyarin, Jeffrey Shandler, Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, and Barbara Kirshenblatt Gimblett. This course is open to advanced undergraduates and graduate students interested in religions as they are practiced and in Jewish Studies.

Language and Literature

HEBR 102: Intro to Modern Hebrew II
Hedda Harari
This course teaches students to understand and create simple texts in Modern Hebrew through exposure to the Hebrew currently used in Israeli television, cinema, pop music, Internet, literature, and everyday conversation. Each lesson emphasizes all four skills: reading, listening comprehension, speaking, and writing, so that the students will feel comfortable to use their skills in the same manner. Grammar will play an important role because understanding grammatical processes makes it easier to learn to speak Hebrew. Similarly, reading and writing will be important inasmuch as these skills facilitate acquisition of speaking competence. Material on Israeli culture, history, and politics is also included. Class will be conducted in Hebrew, and the use of English by students will be discouraged.

YIDD 106: Elementary Yiddish Language and Culture
Gabriel Finder
To adapt a phrase from David G. Roskies, the preeminent scholar in this country of Yiddish literature, "Yiddish is dead. Long live Yiddish!" In his book The Jewish Search for a Usable Past (1999), Roskies writes: "The moment the past is finally laid to reset is the very moment that it reasserts its claim upon the living." If Yiddish was the language of the Jews of Eastern and Central Europe before the khurban ("Holocaust" in Yiddish) and of Jewish immigrants from the "old country" to the "new world," which they called the goldene medina ("the country made out of gold"), it is now being revived by thousands of enthusiasts who are interested in reclaiming this vibrant lost world of tradition and transformation, dreams and nightmares. Yiddish is the key to the portal of this world. Indeed, it is a vastly rich world unto itself.

This course is a continuation of YIDD 105 and continues to introduce students to the fundamentals of the Yiddish language and to Yiddish culture. We will study Yiddish structure and syntax, acquire a basic vocabulary, and apply these skills to speaking, reading, and writing. In the course of our exploration of the Yiddish world, we will watch Yiddish films and listen to Yiddish music.

RELJ 112: Elementary Classical Hebrew II
Greg Goering
A sequel to RELJ 111. The course introduces students to the derived stems, thus completing the study of the verbal system and of basic Hebrew grammar as a whole. In addition, we will read prose passages directly from the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. At the completion of the two semester sequence, students will have mastered the basic tools required to read longer prose passages from the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament in the original language.

HEBR 202: Intermediate Modern Hebrew II
Hedda Harari
This course teaches students to understand and create texts in Modern Hebrew through exposure to the Hebrew currently used in Israeli television, cinema, pop music, Internet, literature, and everyday conversation. Each lesson emphasizes all four skills: reading, listening comprehension, speaking, and writing, so that the students will feel comfortable to use their skills in the same manner. Grammar will play an important role because understanding grammatical processes makes it easier to learn to speak Hebrew. Similarly, reading and writing will be important inasmuch as these skills facilitate acquisition of speaking competence. Material on Israeli culture, history, and politics is also included. This course will combine and broaden the grammatical structures and vocabulary studied in level 101-102 and 201. By the end of Level 202, students will be familiar with the basic structure of the Hebrew Language. The Class will be conducted in Hebrew, and the use of English by students will be discouraged.

HEBR 302: Advanced Modern Hebrew
Hedda Harari
This course will teach students to understand unadapted articles and create passages in Modern Hebrew through exposure to the Hebrew currently used in Israeli television, cinema, pop music, Internet, literature, newspaper, and everyday conversation. Each lesson emphasizes all four skills: reading, listening comprehension, speaking, and writing, so that the students will feel comfortable to use their skills in the same manner. Grammar will play an important role because understanding grammatical processes makes it easier to learn to speak Hebrew. Similarly, reading and writing will be important inasmuch as these skills facilitate acquisition of speaking competence. Material on Israeli culture, history, and politics is also included. The course will combine and broaden the grammatical structures and vocabulary studied in level 201-202 and 301. By the end of 302, students will be able to read texts in regular Hebrew, write on topics discussed in class. The Class will be conducted in Hebrew, and the use of English by students will be discouraged.

GETR 347: Literary Responses to the Holocaust
Jeffrey Grossman
This course examines how writers working in various genres, modes and media seek to respond to the event commonly referred to as the Holocaust. How does that event impinge on memory in the post-1945 period; how do writers confront such problems of memory -- in the generation of survivors and the generations that follow. How successful have been the various attempts at public commemoration? Readings to be drawn from: Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi, Charlotte Delbo, Dan Pagis, Paul Celan, Nelly Sachs, Rose Auslaender, Aharon Appelfeld, Jurek Becker, Anne Michaels, Esther Dischereit. Maxim Biller, David Grossman, James Young and others. Films may include: Night and Fog, Shoah, Europa Europa and My Quarrel with Hersh Rasseyner. Requirements: one short paper (5-7 pages); one long paper (10-12 pp).

HEBR 494: Independent Studies in Hebrew
Hedda Harari
This course will teach students to understand unadapted articles and create passages in Modern Hebrew through exposure to the Hebrew currently used in Israeli television, cinema, pop music, Internet, literature, newspaper, and everyday conversation. Each lesson emphasizes all four skills: reading, listening comprehension, speaking, and writing, so that the students will feel comfortable to use their skills in the same manner. Grammar will play an important role because understanding grammatical processes makes it easier to learn to speak Hebrew. Similarly, reading and writing will be important inasmuch as these skills facilitate acquisition of speaking competence. Material on Israeli culture, history, and politics is also included as well as Israeli literature. The course will combine and broaden the grammatical structures and vocabulary studied in level 301-302 and 493. By the end of 302, students will be able to read texts in regular Hebrew, write on topics discussed in class. The Class will be conducted in Hebrew, and the use of English by students will be discouraged.

View a selected list of previously taught courses.