Modern Jewish France: 1789 to the Present

Tuition: $480 | YIVO members: $375**
Students: $240 (Must register with valid university email address)

This is a live, online seminar held weekly on Zoom. Enrollment will be capped at about 15 students. All course details (Zoom link, syllabus, handouts, etc.) will be posted to Canvas. Students will be granted access to the class on Canvas after registering for the class here on the YIVO website. This class will be conducted in English.

Instructor: Nick Underwood

Course Description:
As the first European nation to emancipate the Jews, France has held a unique place within the modern Jewish imagination. In this course we will explore what liberty, fraternity, and equality meant for France's Jews in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. We will also explore what for many has been considered a welcoming land of asylum for many generations of Europe's Jews: "Lebn vi got in frankraykh," as the Yiddish expression goes, "to live like God in France." This course will explore the conflicted, multifaceted, and multilingual French Jewish experience from 1789 to the present. A central focus will be on the concepts of “acculturation” and “assimilation” and topics will include emancipation; secularism; Yiddish culture; colonialism; Zionism; antisemitism; patterns of social and geographic mobility; the Holocaust; and post-war Jewish life, which will include an examination of the after-effects of the Algerian war in France. We will end the semester with a discussion of recent events in France in an attempt to better understand the realities and contours of the contemporary French Jewish community.

Who should take this course?
This class is open to anyone interested in the topic as outlined in the course description. The class discussion will be conducted in English, and all course materials will be read in English or in English translation. No previous background knowledge or specific education level is required.

Course Materials:
Students should purchase the following textbooks, many of which are available as downloadable PDFs via some libraries. The instructor will post any additional course materials on Canvas.

• Paula E. Hyman, The Jews of Modern France (University of California Press, 1998) (Purchase)
• Ethan Katz, The Burdens of Brotherhood: Jews and Muslims from North Africa to France (Harvard University Press, 2015) (Purchase)
• Nick Underwood, Yiddish Paris: Staging Nation and Community in Interwar France (Indiana University Press, 2022) (Purchase)
• Laura Hobson Faure, A "Jewish Marshall Plan": The American Jewish Presence in Post-Holocaust France (Indiana University Press, 2022) (Purchase)
• Patrick Modiano, Dora Bruder (‎University of California Press, 2014) (Purchase)

Recommended:

• Hélène Berr, The Journal of Hélène Berr (Weinstein Books, 2008) (Purchase)

Nick Underwood is assistant professor of history and the Berger-Neilsen Chair of Judaic Studies at The College of Idaho. He has published widely on the topic of Yiddish culture in twentieth century France. His book Yiddish Paris: Staging Nation and Community in Interwar France was published by Indiana University Press in 2022.

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