2013 Winter Program

Course List · January 8 – 24, 2013

Jews in Soviet History

Instructor: Gennady Estraikh

This course gives a broad overview of Soviet Jewish history, with emphasis on key events from the period  1917-1991. Moving from World War I and the revolutions to the decline of the shtetl and of traditional Jewish life, students will then address  Jewish agricultural colonization, World War II, Stalinist repressions, and the era of emigration. Special attention will be paid to Soviet-related activities of American Jewish organizations.

Hasidism and Other Religious Trends in East European Jewry

Instructor: David Fishman

This course will survey the varieties of religious creativity in East European Jewry between the 16th and 20th centuries. It will explore how various religious movements responded to the changed conditions of Jewish life, including the rise of secularity, and of secular Jewish movement. Topics will include: Moshe Isserles and Polish rabbinic literature, popular piety and literature (moralistic books, tekhines [women’s prayers]), the rise of Hasidism, the Vilna Gaon and Lithuanian Talmudism, secularization in Jewish life, the Mussar Movement, Religious Zionism, Agudath Israel and the transformation of Orthodoxy.

Jewish Folk Music in Eastern Europe

Instructor: Itzik Gottesman

In this course we will look at the history and varieties of Yiddish song, Klezmer music and Hassidic song and nigun. We are very fortunate that YIVO houses world-renowned collections of these genres on record and field recordings, and we will familiarize ourselves with their holdings. The class will examine not only the texts of songs, but also look at the life of the singer and klezmer musican, and the styles of Yiddish singing and klezmer instrumental music.

The Yiddish Stage in America

Instructor: Edna Nahshon

The theater played a major role in the rich Yiddish subculture of the immigrant Jewish community in America.  It was an important communal social hub where the immigrant Jews basked in their own language and culture and watched their American experience reflected and negotiated through a Jewish lens. In the playhouses they learned a smattering of Jewish history and grappled with Jewish nationalism, labor relations, women’s rights, religious observance, acculturation, and Americanization.  In this course we will discuss the major themes of the story of Yiddish theater, focusing on New York, which was universally regarded as the world capital of the Yiddish theater. Using playscripts and historical materials we will discuss central themes such as the use of folklore in drama, realism and the avant-garde, the art theater movement, family drama, political theater, old world vs. new, religion and assimilation. We will be reading plays by Goldfaden, S. Ansky, Jacob Gordin, Sholom Asch, H. Leivick, and Osip Dymow, among others.

Jewish-Christian Relations in Pre-modern Eastern European in History, Historiography, and Memory

Instructor: Magda Teter

Until the Second World War, Jews in Eastern Europe were the largest Jewish community in the world. From the 16th century, their impact on Jewish culture and society has been tremendous, from shaping one of the most important codes of Jewish law, the Shulhan Arukh, in the 16th/17th centuries, to shaping the ideology of the Zionist movement at the turn of the 20th century. Yet, the history of this important Jewish community has been vastly misunderstood. This course offers Jewish history in Eastern Europe that takes us beyond the (legendary) shtetl and into a complex, more textured world of Jews living among Christians.  We will explore the legal framework in which Jews lived, their relations with Christian authories, both secular and ecclesiastical, and their daily interactions with their neighbors.

Masterpieces of Yiddish Literature

Instructor: Curt Leviant

In this course, we will explore the stories, plays, and sections of novels of  some of the classic Yiddish writers of the late 19th to mid-20th century: Sholom Aleichem, Anski, Avraham Reisen, Lamed Shapiro, Isaac Bashevis Singer,  and Chaim Grade. Some classic Yiddish films will be screened, and we will compare cinematic and literary versions in class discussions.

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