/HIST 146: National Histories--Palestine, Lebanon, Israel
The Conflict--100 years in historical perspective (new course)
W 6:00-8:15 PM
David Meir-Levi
This course will review and analyze the events of the past century in Palestine, Lebanon and Israel, in order to gain a clear understanding of the dynamics behind the seemingly endless conflicts which beset this tragically war-torn and strife-ridden segment of the Middle East. Among the topics under study will be the destruction of the Caliphate and the creation of new states by Western imperialist forces, the rise and advance of political Zionism, the Arab-Israel conflict, terrorism as a weapon of religion and politics, the tragic plight of refugees, Israel as the dominant regional super-power, the recreation of Palestine, and American foreign policy in the Middle East. During the latter part of the semester the course will analyze a number of different ways in which these conflicts could be resolved.
HIST/JWSS 115: Ancient Near East
TTR 12:00-1:15
Prof. Jonathan Roth
The course studies the great river civilizations (Nile, Tigris-Euphrates and Indus) from 3500 BC to the Roman Conquest, including the empires of the Hittites, Assyrians, Persians and the Hebrews. Emphasis is placed on politics, culture, religion and contributions to Greek, Roman and Christian developments.
ARTH/JWSS 152 Jewish Art (new course)
TTR 9:00-10:15
Prof. Marilyn Wyman
This class will explore the significance of the visual arts within the study of Jewish history and identity. Among the topics we will consider are the connections between visual cultural and religious observance, the creation of the anti-Semitic stereotypes, the relationship between art and Jewish involvement in political movements, the connection between Jewishness and abstraction, the challenges faced by artists grappling with the Holocaust, and the place of Jewish artists in American art. We will start with a series of questions which we will revisit over the course of the semester. 1) What is (is there such a thing as) “Jewish art?” 2) How does “Jewish art” grapple with the Second Commandment? 3) How do Jewish artists portray their Jewish identity? 4) How do depictions of Jews by Jews differ from those created by non-Jews? 5) What has been the role of the visual arts in the life of the "nation without art" over the ages? 6) How did Jewish artists overcome the cultural restrictions imposed on them by the Christian communities in which they lived? Jews have always been ambitiously engaged in virtually every form of art-making - both secular and sacred- from architecture to ritual vessels, from illuminated manuscripts to paintings.
RELS/ MDES/ JWSS 108 Jewish Mysticism, Magic & Folklore
M 6:30-9:15
Prof. Mira Amiras
This course introduces Jewish sacred texts, cosmological concepts, mystical language, folklore, and magical beliefs and practices from ancient times to the present. We will be using primary sources in translation, including Talmudic commentary, debate, grammatical analysis, allegory and analogy as means of reaching underlying meaning and altered experience. We will contrast Talmudic legalism with the ecstatic, mystical traditions elaborated in Kabbalistic texts and explore the folklore in both Talmud and Kabbalah. Concepts covered include notions of masculine and feminine aspects of the Godhead, competing understandings of the nature of the Shekhinah (Patai’s ‘Hebrew Goddess’), Adam Kadmon (the ‘Primordial Man’ or ‘Evolving Human’), mystical symbols embedded in the Hebrew alphabet and grammar, the Tree of Life, Sephirot, Tarot, and gamatria (numerology). Ancient, Talmudic and Kabbalistic approaches to spirituality will be compared. We will be interested in correspondences and contradictions, as well as in the
universalism of Jewish mysticism. We will explore the relationship between mysticism and TIKKUN OLAM, global healing, throughout the term. No prior knowledge of Hebrew, Bible or Jewish studies is required for this class.
RELS/ JWSS 90: Bible History and Literature
MW 12:00-1: 15; TTR 3:00-4:15
Prof. Brent Walters
This introductory course on the Bible reconstructs the original context of the biblical record, covering the social setting of the Jews and early Christians in light of the cultural and religious environment that influenced the writers of these sacred writings. Discussing literal and figurative uses of language, the class studies biblical narrative, prophecy, poetry, wisdom, apocalypse, gospel, parable, and epistle.
ENG 190 Honors Colloquium on the Jewish Short Story (new course)
TTR 9:00-10:15
Prof. David Mesher
In 1953, a young novelist translated a short story by a Yiddish writer whose career had gone nowhere since the publication of his first novel in English a few years earlier. That story, “Gimpel the Fool,” has become one of the most popular and anthologized fictions in American literature, and both the writer, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and the translator, Saul Bellow, went on separately to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Little more than fifty years later, however, we can now hardly imagine any new story attracting much notice at all. This course will look at the genre of short fiction through the lens of Jewish literature in America, to explore the reasons for and effects of the decline of the short story, as well as the reasons behind the continuing achievement of American Jewish story writers. Besides works by Singer and Bellow, we will be reading the fiction of American writers such as Abraham Cahan, Anzia Yezierska, Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth, Cynthia Ozick, Nathan Englander, and many others, either as individual stories, or in the context of the original volumes in which they were collected.
Prerequisites: junior or senior standing, 3.5 major and 3.0 overall GPA and admission to departmental honors program.
Hebrew Courses
Prof. Rina Katzen
The Hebrew program is directed to people interested in the Bible, religious studies, archeology, linguistics, learning a foreign language, or learning about ancient and modern Israel.
Hebrew 10A Elementary Hebrew
T TR 10:30-11:45
HEBR 15A Intermediate Hebrew
T TR 1:30-2:45
HEBR 102A Advanced Hebrew
T TR 3-4:15
Two MUSE seminars for freshmen only:
HIST 96FY Angels in America: AIDS, Jews, Mormons, Race, Roy Cohn, and the Rosenbergs
TTR 10:30-11:45
Prof. Victoria Harrison
This course explores the two-part Pulitzer Prize winning play, Angels in America by Tony Kushner, both as a work of literature and drama, and as a work that exposes and forces us to confront a myriad of socio/cultural, physiological, and psychological issues of our time. As a MUSE seminar, the course also offers freshmen a transition to the intellectual expectations and campus offerings that make up the life of a student-scholar.
RELS 96FY The Bible: Its Original Meaning
MW 3:00-4:15
Prof. Brent Walters
This class returns students to the ancient world in search of the original meaning of the Bible. To
accomplish this objective, we discuss the writers of this book and those they initially intended to read it. Did God write the Ten Commandments? Do other gospels tell a different story about Jesus? Is the Bible the result of centuries of editing and rewriting? These are the types of questions covered in this course. The instructor uses hundreds of images throughout the semester, many showing artifacts, maps, archaeological findings, early Jewish and Christian art, and biblical manuscripts. If you have ever wondered whether or not the Bible is taught accurately today, this class is for you. Was that really Satan in the Garden of Eden? Attend the first week of class and learn the answer.
Look for the following SJSU Jewish Studies classes in Spring 09:
History of Israel (History)
Anti-Semitism and the American Experience (new course in History)
Jewish Law and Interpretation (new course in Religious Studies)
Bible History and Literature (Religious Studies)
Hebrew in three levels (Foreign Lanaguage)
Holocaust Literature (English and Comparative Literature)
Middle East Politics (Political Science)
Jewish Cinema (Radio-TV-Film)
