|
| |
The Graduate
School of the College of Charleston
History 590 American Jewish history
from the Colonial period to the Present
Dr. Stuart
Knee
Office: Maybank 311 (3-5938)
Syllabus
Description
Course Title: American Jewish history from the Colonial
period to the Present
Course Credit: 3 cr.
Course Description: A study of the major events and personalities in American
history since earliest settlement; waves of Jewish immigration and the
development of the contemporary American Jewish community.
Purpose
This course is designed to enable students to
1. Confront the problem of finding a Adefinition@
for American Judaism
2. Investigate the position of various organizations,
groups and philosophies within American Judaism
3. Discuss the range of American Jewish Aexpectations@Bcultural,
social, political, intellectual and spiritual
4. Resolve the issue of America=s
impact on Jewish life and vice versa
5. Engage in a dialogue on historic issues in American
Judaism as you see and feel them
Attendance
More than two unexcused absences will result in grade deflation
and a discussion of your situation with the Graduate program Director.
Also, you must take the responsibility of informing yourself of any changes
in schedule or assignments announced in your absence. Although your grade
will reflect your performance on written assignments (see below), classroom
discussion and participation will count in your favor.
Requirements
A mid-term, a final and a research paper whose topic and
focus must be decided in conference with me. The research paper may deal
with any legitimate problem in American Jewish history or it may deal
with a specific event, personality, philosophy or phenomenon which shaped
or is shaping American Judaism. The paper must use primary source materials
which are available in the campus library (Congressional Record, Foreign
Relations of the United States, organizational records, manuscripts,
family collections, newspapers, documents, edited collections of correspondence
and letters, diaries, memoirs) as well as standard monographic (secondary)
sources.
A suitable topic would lead a student to carefully describe
and draw conclusions about an aspect of American Jewish life of personal,
cultural, intellectual, institutional or diplomatic interest. For example,
one could study any one of the three synagogues in Charleston and interview
its rabbi with regard to that congregation=s
history; one could do approximately the same thing with regard to the
local Jewish Community Center. By examining the written record and interviewing
prominent people of that institution, one could trace its history, growth
and future in Charleston. Other suggestions might be Jewish Holocaust
survivors (for this, you would interview suitable members of the Jewish
community), philanthropy in American Jewish life and its justification;
local/family/oral history of your or someone else=s
family; the history of Addlestone Hebrew Academy (Charleston=s
only Jewish Day School); the origins and development of institutions with
a national character, e.g. Yeshiva University or Brandeis University;
the Jewish and/or secular work of Ludwig Lewisohn, Charles Reznikoff,
Leslie Fiedler, Alfred Kazin, Philip Roth, Leonard Bernstein, Abraham
Joshua Heschel, Mordecai Kaplan, Paul Simon, Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud,
Chaim Potok, Jerry Lewis, E.L. Doctorow, Joseph Heller, Aaron Copeland,
Irving Berlin, Albert Einstein, Jonas Salk, George Gershwin, Rogers and
Hammerstein, Fred Astaire, Robert Oppenheimer, Adolph Ochs, Betty Friedan,
Stephen Spielberg, Lillian Hellman, Edna Ferber, Cynthia Ozick, Henry
Kissinger, Henry and Robert Morgenthau or any one of a host of artists
and intellectuals; American Zionism; Diplomacy of the United States and
the Holocaust; American Jews in the South before or after the Civil War;
the philosophy and activities of B=nai
B=rith Hillel foundations or
the Anti-Defamation League (ADL); the case of Leo Frank, Leopold and Loeb,
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg or Jonathan Pollard; the anti-Semitism of Charles
Lindbergh, Henry Ford or Charles Coughlin. When it is completed, the paper
should be between 15-20 typewritten pages and should incorporate
factual and interpretive material. The paper is due at the last scheduled
class meeting before the final and you ought to make an appointment with
me to discuss a topic. This paper is as important as the exams and a superficial
treatment of a topic will not be welcomed. Also, I will not accept
late submissions.
Required Texts
1. Howard M. Sachar, A History of the Jews in America.
New York: Vintage Books, 1993.
2. Frederic Cople Jaher, A Scapegoat in the New Wilderness.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994.
3. Henry Roth, Call It Sleep. New York: The Noonday
Press, 1993.
4. John Chalberg, Emma Goldman: American Individualist.
New York: Longman, 1991.
5. Robert Abzug, Inside the Vicious Heart. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
6. Paula E. Hyman, Gender and Assimilation in Modern
Jewish History: The Role and Representation of Women. Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 1997.
7. Jack Wertheimer, A People Divided: Judaism in
Contemporary America. New York: Basic Books, 1993.
|
