Center for Judaic Studies Jews on the Move Rimon: Master Classes in Judaic Studies Spring 2007

I. Master Class: “Towards a Cultural History of East European Jewry: Key Texts”

This Master Class explores three of the most distinctive cultural phenomena of East European Jewry: Hasidism, secular literature in Yiddish, and diaspora nationalist historiography. Professor Nathans works through readings of texts from the late-18th to the mid-20th century. Major themes include religious renewal, interiority, and the question of Hasidism’s alleged modernity; representations of the self and of self-emancipation; and the attempt to forge a specifically East European genealogy for modern Jewish history.

Session 1: Hasidism

·Hundert, Gershon. “Hasidism, a New Path.” Jews in Poland-Lithuania in the Eighteenth Century: A Genealogy of Modernity. Chapter 9. 186-210

·R. Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev: Two Parables

·Green, Arthur and Barry H. Holtz, trans. and eds. Your Word is Fire: The Hasidic Masters on Contemplative Prayer. 1977. [selections]


Session 2: Literature and Social Criticism

·Sholem Aleichem, “On Account of a Hat”

·L. Peretz, “Bontsha the Silent”


Session 3: Historical Consciousness

·Simon Dubnov, The Book of Life (excerpts from translation in preparation)

·Benjamin Nathans, “A ‘Hebrew Drama’: Lilienblum, Dubnow, and the Idea of ‘Crisis’ in East European Jewish History,” Jahrbuch des Simon-Dubnow-Institut/Simon Dubnow Institute Yearbook vol. 5 (2006): 211-31

·Benjamin Nathans, “On Russian-Jewish Historiography,” in Thomas Sanders, ed., Historiography of Imperial Russia: The Profession and Writing of History in a Multi-National State (1999): 397-432