Jewish Politics and Modernity

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

What is the relationship between the Jewish tradition and Israeli politics? Why can't we talk about Jewish modernity without talking about Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, and the occupation of Palestine? What are the legacies of Jewish social justice activism and Jewish anti-racism in Israel and the diasporas? What are the intersectional experiences of Jews of Color, Mizrahi, Ethiopian, and other non-European Jews and how do they challenge normative accounts of Jewish modernity and Jewish assimilation into "whiteness"? This course will examine Jewish modernity with a special focus on the relationship between antisemitism and anti-Muslim racism in Euro-America and shifts from Jewish powerlessness to Jewish power as they manifest in cases from Jewish anti-apartheid activism in South Africa and solidarity during the Civil Rights Movement in the US to the Israeli regime which has been defined by multiple Jewish and non-Jewish organizations such as Amnesty International as "apartheid." The course will examine narratives of Jewish displacement, belonging, and de/coloniality and will centralize approaches and experiences of marginalized communities as a way to interrogate Jewish modernity and politics.