Jewish Studies

The Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies: 

Department website: http://www.iijs.columbia.edu/

Office location: 617 Kent Hall

Office contact: 212-854-2581, iijs@columbia.edu

Program Director: Dr. Isabelle Levy, icl2001@columbia.edu 

Jewish Studies

The academic discipline of Jewish Studies is an interdisciplinary field centered on the analysis and investigation of Jewish history, religion, cultures, languages, and literatures. The discipline ranges from the study of Jews and Judaism in antiquity to the present day. It explores Judaism not only as a religion, but also as a civilization and culture.

A minor in Jewish Studies is available for undergraduates and allows students to draw upon classes in a wide range of departments across the University, including, but not limited to, History; Sociology; Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies; Germanic Languages; Music; Film; and Religion. The requirements for the minor are designed to provide students with the interdisciplinary knowledge necessary to pursue Jewish Studies both broadly and deeply.

The roots of Judaism lie deeper than one region, gender, language, or culture, and by studying the interconnectedness of these areas, the depth of understanding across a range of spheres and disciplines greatly increases. The minor in Jewish Studies provides students with an opportunity to expand their knowledge according to their particular interests and can likewise complement an array of majors across academic disciplines.

Students wishing to complete a minor in Jewish Studies work with Program Director Dr. Isabelle Levy to decide upon course selection and sequencing. The program office provides and keeps on record a planning form to track the fulfillment of requirements for the minor.

Student Advising

Consulting Advisers

Please reach out to our Program Director, Dr. Isabelle Levy, at icl2001@columbia.edu for any advising needs

Enrolling in Classes

IIJS courses are available for registration through Vergil. Professors will often give enrollment priority to Jewish Studies minors if you contact them directly. If you have any questions about which classes apply towards the Minor in Jewish Studies, please contact our Program Director, Dr. Isabelle Levy, at icl2001@columbia.edu.

Preparing for Graduate Study

Jewish Studies students continue on to graduate study in a variety of fields. Please reach out to our Program Director, Dr. Isabelle Levy, at icl2001@columbia.edu for any advising needs.

Coursework Taken Outside of Columbia

Advanced Placement

Students will not be able to apply advanced placement credit towards the minor.     

Barnard College Courses 

Certain Barnard College courses may be applied towards the minor. Several Barnard courses are cross-listed with Jewish Studies. If you have any questions about which classes apply towards the Minor in Jewish Studies, please contact our Program Director, Dr. Isabelle Levy, at icl2001@columbia.edu.

Transfer Courses 

Students may request permission on a case-by-case basis to apply one course each of transfer coursework and study abroad coursework to the minor. If you have any questions about which classes apply towards the Minor in Jewish Studies, please contact our Program Director, Dr. Isabelle Levy, at icl2001@columbia.edu.

Study Abroad Courses

Students may request permission on a case-by-case basis to apply one course each of transfer coursework and study abroad coursework. If you have any questions about which classes apply towards the Minor in Jewish Studies, please contact our Program Director, Dr. Isabelle Levy, at icl2001@columbia.edu.

Summer Courses 

Some summer courses may be applied toward the minor. If you have any questions about which classes apply towards the Minor in Jewish Studies, please contact our Program Director, Dr. Isabelle Levy, at icl2001@columbia.edu.

Core Curriculum Connections

In addition to finding intellectual links among their coursework, Core Curriculum courses, and major study coursework, Jewish Studies students may choose to take Global Core courses that contain Jewish Studies content. As is College policy, two courses that fulfill either the Global Core or the science requirement can be double-counted toward the Core requirements and toward one of your programs of study.

Undergraduate Research and Senior Thesis

Jewish Studies students will have the opportunity to meet with Jewish Studies Librarian Michelle Margolis and to consult Columbia’s Jewish Studies research collections, which exceeds 150,000 monographs; 1,000 periodical titles; 60,000 Hebrew and Yiddish titles; Jewish scholarly works in Western and Slavic languages; and 1,700 Hebrew and Jewish-language (e.g., Judeo-Arabic) manuscripts–the largest collection of Judaica manuscripts in any secular research university.

Undergraduate Research in Courses

Most Jewish Studies courses, as well as cross-listed courses that count towards the Minor, include a research component. Instructors will support students in completing research projects.

The Jewish Studies curriculum includes for-credit faculty-advised independent research. Students may reach out to our Program Director, Dr. Isabelle Levy, at icl2001@columbia.edu with questions about undergraduate research.

Department Honors and Prizes

Students on track to complete the Jewish Studies minor may apply for limited summer research funding at the discretion of the IIJS faculty. Please reach out to our Program Director, Dr. Isabelle Levy, at icl2001@columbia.edu with questions.

 
 
 
 
 

Affiliated Faculty

  • Beth Berkowitz (Religion, Barnard)
  • Clemence Boulouque (Religion)
  • Elisheva Carlebach (History)
  • Yinon Cohen (Sociology)
  • Jeremy Dauber (Germanic Languages)
  • Ofer Dynes (Slavic Languages and Literatures)
  • Rebecca Kobrin (History)
  • Agnieszka Legutko (Germanic Languages)
  • Seth Schwartz (History)
  • Michael Stanislawski (History)

Guidance for Undergraduate Students in the Department

Program Planning for all Students

Please reach out to our Program Director, Dr. Isabelle Levy, at icl2001@columbia.edu for any advising needs.

Course Numbering Structure

Undergraduate coursework is offered at the 2000, 3000, and 4000 levels. Undergraduate courses are worth 3 or 4 points. Many Jewish Studies courses are cross-listed in other departments, including History; Germanic Languages; Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies; Religion; Slavic Languages; Music; and Sociology. Some 5000 or 6000 level courses may be available for undergraduate enrollment, at the discretion of the instructor.

Guidance for First-Year Students 

Please reach out to our Program Director, Dr. Isabelle Levy, at icl2001@columbia.edu for any advising needs.

Guidance for Transfer Students 

Please reach out to our Program Director, Dr. Isabelle Levy, at icl2001@columbia.edu for any advising needs.

Undergraduate Programs of Study

Minor in Jewish Studies  

In addition to the requirements of the minor, students must complete a major.

Students are required to complete five Jewish Studies courses comprising between 15 to 20 points, depending on the number of points of each course. Introductory language study that complements the student’s Jewish Studies coursework may constitute one of these courses. Languages may include (but are not limited to) Arabic, Aramaic, French, Greek, Hebrew, Russian, and Yiddish and should be relevant to the student’s other coursework in Jewish Studies. Language courses at the advanced level that are conducted in the language and that require reading and writing in the language may count as an additional course.

Jewish Studies students may choose to take Global Core courses that contain Jewish Studies content. As is College policy, two courses that fulfill either the Global Core or the science requirement can be double-counted toward the Core requirements and toward one of your programs of study.

Jewish Studies Courses*

(*not all available in a given semester/year)

Music JWST UN2155 Music, Sound, and Antisemitism

Religion UN2306 INTRO TO JUDAISM

History UN2611 JEWS & JUDAISM IN ANTIQUITY

Sociology UN3285 ISRAELI SOC & ISR-PLS CONFLICT

Religion UN3301 INTRODUCTION TO HEBREW BIBLE

SPJS UN3303 Jewish Literature in Translation in the Medieval Mediterranean

Yiddish UN3500 SURVEY OF YIDDISH LIT (ENG)

CLYD UN3500 Human in Modern Jewish Literature

History UN3604 JEWS AND THE CITY

Music GU4113 Medieval Mediterranean Love Songs

Jewish Studies GU4145 Topics in Israeli Cinema

Jewish Studies GU4147 Between Tradition & Innovation: Readings

Jewish Studies GU4156 An Introduction to World Zionist Thought

Jewish Studies GU4157 Israeli Politics in Times of Turmoil

Jewish Studies GU4149 A History of Jewish-Muslim Encounters

Jewish Studies GU4153 U.S. Civil and Human Rights Lawyers

Jewish Studies GU4154 Magic in Jewish History and Culture

CLYD GU4250 Memory & Trauma in Yiddish Literature

Women’s Studies GU4336 GENDER AND Sexuality in Yiddish Literature

GU4509 CRIME/PUNISHMENT-JEWISH CULTURE

History GU4525 Immigrant New York

Sociology GU4801 Israel and the Palestinians

English GU4938 HISTORY OF HORROR

Jewish Studies GU4990 Topics in Jewish Studies

Sociology GR6160 ISRAELI SOCIETY - SPEC TOPICS

Sociology GR6161 Dynamics of the Israeli-Palest

Religion GR6420 RELIGION & PUBLIC LIFE

History GR8132 THE JEWISH BOOK IN EARLY MOD WORLD

For students who entered Columbia in or before the 2023-24 academic year 

Special Concentration in Jewish Studies

In addition to the requirements of the special concentration, students must complete a major or a full concentration.

In addition to the requirements of the special concentration, students must complete a major.

For a special concentration in Jewish studies, students are required to complete a minimum of 21 points. Please note:

  • At least one course must be taken from each of three of the focus areas listed below.
  • Credits for language courses may constitute at most 10 points, and one year of Hebrew or Yiddish language is strongly recommended.
  • A minimum of 18 points must be taken at Columbia or as part of an approved study abroad program (unless equivalent courses are not offered at Columbia, as determined by the faculty adviser).

The focus areas listed below are examples. Additionally, as new courses are introduced, new focus areas may develop. Some courses may fall under multiple headings. Determination of a course's focus area is at the discretion of the faculty adviser.

Focus Areas

Bible and Rabbinics/Ancient Judaism
Medieval Judaism
Modern Judaism
Israeli Society
Gender and Judaism
Jewish History and Culture
Jewish Literature

Jewish Studies courses are housed in a number of departments throughout the University. For a full list of courses for the 2023-2024 academic year please visit the Institute website

Fall 2024 Courses

Jewish Studies

JWST GU4145 Topics in Israeli Cinema. 3.00 points.

Israel has a unique and constantly-evolving national cinema, the product of its diverse immigrant population, influences from neighboring nations, and dramatic national history. Beginning with artistic influences from abroad and culminating with native self-examinations, this course will provide a survey of Israeli film history, recurring foci of Israeli cinema, and introductions to influential filmmakers from early director and impresario Menahem Golan to Orthodox writer/director Rama Burshtein. Each class meeting will include a complete screening of an Israeli feature film, as well as clips of related works. Readings will include critical essays and histories which elaborate on in-class screenings and cover additional topics and films. Written assignments will be three analytical essays which will encourage critical thinking, close analysis of films, and independent research beyond the materials presented in class. All readings are in English. All feature films and film clips are in Hebrew (some include Arabic), and will be presented with English subtitles. Students fluent in Hebrew and Arabic are encouraged to interpret the dialogue for additional meaning that may not be translated in the subtitles

Fall 2024: JWST GU4145
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
JWST 4145 001/11261 T 10:00am - 1:45pm
337 Seeley W. Mudd Building
Stuart Weinstock 3.00 18/25

JWST GU4990 Topics in Jewish Studies. 4.00 points.

This course approaches Jewish Studies from theoretical and pedagogical standpoints. In addition to looking back at ancient, medieval and Early Modern approaches to the study of Jewish topics and examining the theoretical, historical and religious underpinnings of Jewish Studies as a modern discipline, we will also read theoretical writings from related disciplines. The course will balance these materials with pedagogical materials and exercises. Faculty from disciplines related to Jewish Studies will visit the seminar to offer perspectives on current approaches to the field, and the class will visit the Rare Book and Manuscript Library with Jewish Studies Librarian Michelle Chesner. This course is required for students in the Jewish Studies MA program. It is open to graduate students, and advanced undergraduates may register with permission from the instructor. Please note that faculty visits will be added to the syllabus as they are scheduled

Fall 2024: JWST GU4990
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
JWST 4990 001/10647 M 10:10am - 12:00pm
Room TBA
Isabelle Levy 4.00 5/15

JWST GU4147 Between Tradition & Innovation: Readings in Hasidic History and Literature. 3.00 points.

The popular eighteenth-century mystical revivalist movement known as Hasidism transformed the religious and cultural life of Eastern European Jewry and remains a vibrant form of Judaism to this day. This seminar will introduce students to the history, ideology and major personalities of the Hasidic movement through a close reading of a broad selection of primary texts, including mystical tracts, collections of sermons, spiritual directives, hagiographical tales and polemical writings. We will explore the mystical ideas and practices taught by the founders of the movement, the new forms of leadership they developed and the fierce controversies they aroused. We will also consider the role played by Hasidic literature in the formation and spread of the movement and the tensions it embodied between tradition and innovation, elitism and populism, and oral and written modes of communication. This course is open to graduate students and advanced undergraduates may register with permission from the instructor

Fall 2024: JWST GU4147
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
JWST 4147 001/14137 M 4:10pm - 6:00pm
201b Philosophy Hall
Elly Moseson 3.00 10/15

JWST GU4156 An Introduction to World Zionist Thought. 4.00 points.

In this course, students will be exposed to a range of different ideas and movements that, together, constitute(d) “Zionism.” Although Israel is frequently in the news, the ideology that lies, in many ways, at the heart of Israeli politics and society is often represented in simplistic – even superficial or inaccurate – terms. Far more than a mere example of “nationalism,” Zionism has variously been interwoven with struggles over land, labor, gender, religion, and identity in not only Palestine/Israel, but also North Africa, East Africa, Southwest Asia, Central Asia, Europe, the Americas, and beyond. Throughout the semester, students will read both primary and secondary sources in order to understand Zionism in its myriad meanings. Part I of the course will explore some of the basic tenets and debates of Zionism, with a focus on ideas prominent in the early twentieth century, such as socialism and Hebraism. Part II of the course will examine the ways in which Zionist ideas conceived in the Ottoman Empire and Europe diverged and took on new and renewed meaning as the Zionist movement reached global dimensions

Fall 2024: JWST GU4156
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
JWST 4156 001/17030 W 12:10pm - 2:00pm
401 Hamilton Hall
Benjamin Berman-Gladstone 4.00 6/15

JWST UN2155 Music, Sound, and Antisemitism. 3.00 points.

From the Middle Ages to the present, individuals involved in making and writing about music, have engaged in behaviors, creations, and discourses steeped in hatred of Jews. This course examines the various ways in which these individuals have used music to perform and inscribe, symbolize, describe, and editorialize antisemitism. In so doing, it focuses on musicking—a term that encompasses all musical activity from composing to performing to listening—in the realms of art music, popular music, and non-Western traditions, as well as of genres that synthesize different styles. It also draws on sound, including language and speech as well as writings such as Wagner’s Judenthum in der Musik (1848−50/69) and Carl Engel’s The Music of the Most Ancient Nations (1864). All of these will serve as a window through which to address the types of Jew-hatred that have become known since the mid-nineteenth century as antisemitism—religious, national and ethnic, political, populist, economic, and institutional—as well as hate speech or “hate talk” and the Jewish responses to it. A basic familiarity with music is helpful for this course, but it is not required as long as there is an openness to listening to music and a commitment to basic aural analysis. You do not need to know Jewish history to take this class, nor do you need to be able to read music. Translations will be provided, and musical analysis will be well explained. Suggested prerequisites: Music Humanities (Columbia University) or An Introduction to Music (Barnard)

Fall 2024: JWST UN2155
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
JWST 2155 001/15082 M W 11:40am - 12:55pm
227 Seeley W. Mudd Building
Tina Fruehauf 3.00 4/20

Hebrew

MDES UN1501 1ST YR MOD HEBREW:ELEM I. 5.00 points.

This is an introductory course for which no prior knowledge is required. Equal emphasis is given to listening, speaking, reading, writing and grammar. Daily homework includes grammar exercises, short answers, reading, or paragraph writing. Frequent vocabulary and grammar quizzes. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class

Fall 2024: MDES UN1501
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
MDES 1501 001/13902 M T W Th 8:50am - 9:55am
C01 Knox Hall
Illan Gonen 5.00 11/12
MDES 1501 002/13908 M T W Th 10:10am - 11:15am
C01 Knox Hall
Illan Gonen 5.00 7/12

MDES UN2501 2ND YR MOD HEBREW:INTER I. 5.00 points.

Prerequisites: 1st Year Modern Hebrew II or the equivalent and instructor's permission.
Prerequisites: 1st Year Modern Hebrew II or the equivalent and instructor's permission. Equal emphasis is given to listening, speaking, reading and writing. Regular categories of the Hebrew verb, prepositions, and basic syntax are taught systematically. Vocabulary building. Daily homework includes grammar exercises, short answers, reading, or short compositions. Frequent vocabulary and grammar quizzes. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class

Fall 2024: MDES UN2501
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
MDES 2501 001/13910 M T W Th 11:40am - 12:45pm
101 Knox Hall
Danielle Katz-Shenhar 5.00 9/15

MDES UN2516 INT HEBREW:INTENSVE GRAMMAR REV. 4.00 points.

This course focuses on Modern Hebrew grammar, and verb conjugation in particular. It is designed for students with substantial knowledge of Modern Hebrew. Over the semester, students will systematically review the grammatical patterns of regular verbs (shlemim), and learn the grammatical patterns of the irregular verbs (gzarot), as well as several other grammatical topics. After successful completion of this course, the foreign language requirement will be fulfilled (for students of Columbia College and other academic units that require a 4th-semester proficiency). Successful completion of this course also allows students to register in third-year Modern Hebrew

Fall 2024: MDES UN2516
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
MDES 2516 001/13912 M Th 11:40am - 12:55pm
C01 Knox Hall
Illan Gonen 4.00 13/12

MDES UN2517 HEBREW FOR HERITAGE SPEAKERS I. 4.00 points.


Fee: Language Resource Center Fee - 15.00

Prerequisites: Permission of instructor.
Prerequisites: Permission of instructor. Hebrew for Heritage Speakers I forms part of a year-long sequence with Hebrew for Heritage Speakers II. The course is intended for those who have developed basic speaking and listening skills through exposure to Hebrew at home or in day-school programs but do not use Hebrew as their dominant language and have not reached the level required for exemption from the Columbia language requirement. Heritage speakers differ in the degree of their fluency, but their vocabulary is often limited to topics in daily life and many lack skills in reading and writing to match their ability to converse. The course focuses on grammar and vocabulary enrichment, exposing students to a variety of cultural and social topics in daily life and beyond. By the end of the semester students are able to read and discuss simple texts and write about a variety of topics. Successful completion of the year-long sequence prepares students to enroll in third-year modern Hebrew. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class

Fall 2024: MDES UN2517
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
MDES 2517 001/13913 M W Th 10:10am - 11:25am
101 Knox Hall
Danielle Katz-Shenhar 4.00 12/15

MDES GU4501 READINGS IN HEBREW TEXTS I. 4.00 points.

Prerequisites: (MDES GU4510) and (MDES GU4511) 3RD Year Modern Hebrew or the instructor's permission.
Prerequisites: (MDES GU4510) and (MDES GU4511) 3RD Year Modern Hebrew or the instructor's permission. This course focuses on central identities shaping Israeli society and is designed to give students extensive experience in reading Hebrew. Through selected readings of contemporary literary works and media texts, students will increase their proficiency in Hebrew and enhance their understanding of Israeli culture and society. All readings, written assignments, and class discussions are in Hebrew. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class

MDES GU4510 3RD YR MODERN HEBREW I. 4.00 points.

Prerequisites: 2nd Year Modern Hebrew II, Hebrew for Heritage Speakers II, or the instructor's permission.
Prerequisites: 2nd Year Modern Hebrew II, Hebrew for Heritage Speakers II, or the instructor's permission. This course is designed to take students from the intermediate to advanced level. Students will further develop their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills in Hebrew through an examination of a wide range of sources, including short stories, poems, visual arts, popular music, television shows and films. All readings, written assignments, and class discussions are in Hebrew. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class

Fall 2024: MDES GU4510
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
MDES 4510 001/13920 M W 10:10am - 12:00pm
607 Martin Luther King Building
Naama Harel 4.00 10/12

History

HIST UN2611 JEWS & JUDAISM IN ANTIQUITY. 4.00 points.

Prerequisites: Students must also enroll in required discussion section.

  Field(s): ANC

Fall 2024: HIST UN2611
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
HIST 2611 001/10333 M W 8:40am - 9:55am
304 Hamilton Hall
Seth Schwartz 4.00 20/35
HIST 2611 AU1/18834 M W 8:40am - 9:55am
Othr Other
Seth Schwartz 4.00 3/3

HIST GR8132 THE JEWISH BOOK IN EARLY MOD WORLD. 4.00 points.

This course will situate the Jewish book within the context of the theoretical and historical literature on the history of the book: notions of orality and literacy, text and material platform, authors and readers, print and manuscript, language and gender, the book trade and its role in the circulation of people and ideas in the early age of print

HIST GU4641 HOLOCAUST GENOCIDE-AMER CULTRE. 4.00 points.

When the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. opened in 1993, some people asked why a "European" catastrophe was being memorialized alongside shrines to Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln while there was still no museum documenting the experience of African slaves in the United States or the effort to exterminate the Native Americans on this continent. How American intellectuals have thought about the Nazi regime and the Holocaust in Europe since before the Second World War and in the latter half of the twentieth century is te focus on this course. The course will also compare the ways the United States narrates, conceptualizes and deals with the Holocaust as oppsed to other genocidal events. This course is comparative at its core as it examines how intellectuals and institutions spanning from Hannah Arendt to the United Nations to the US Holocaust Museum have woven this event into American culture

Fall 2024: HIST GU4641
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
HIST 4641 001/18673 W 2:10pm - 4:00pm
301m Fayerweather
Rebecca Kobrin 4.00 5/15

Comparative Literature

CLGR UN3458 Netflix Culture. 3.00 points.

Netflix Culture “Whether you are in Sydney or St. Petersburg, Singapore or Seoul, Santiago or Saskatoon, you now can be part of the internet TV revolution. No more waiting. No more watching on a schedule that’s not your own. No more frustration. Just Netflix.” (Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, 2016) The word “Netflix” refers not simply to the American online video store that became a streaming service in the twenty-first century's first decade and an international production company in the second. It is a synecdoche for the widespread popularization of Internet TV seen in the success of SVODs (subscription video-on-demand services) like Amazon Prime Video, Disney , and Apple TV . The course will focus on the pioneering role of the Netflix streaming service and its dominant role in the creation and distribution of popular film and television content. In recent years, the success of internationally acclaimed productions has signaled a renewed interest in global histories and cultures, many of which were produced by Netflix and made available worldwide through its streaming service. The course discusses how processes of distribution and redistribution set in motion by the streaming service call for us to reconsider and reapproach ideas advanced by cultural studies that now seem unsuitable for delineating the full scope of Internet TV’s proliferation. We analyze Netflix series in the global scene and examine how global contents are tied to the emergence of unique genres. How do recent Netflix productions change, modify, or reimagine the narratives of national histories and cultures globally? Has the international online platform and film market more generally changed national images and stereotypes? More specifically, which genre conventions emerge from global politics and these new modes of streaming services? How have the series assimilated to international market conditions and audiences? Has the serial dispositive of television (as opposed to film), as well as the different viewing venues (private space of one’s home) and mode of consumption (binging), changed how global contents are presented? Each week will focus on a different genre and analyze central episodes from two different series

Fall 2024: CLGR UN3458
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
CLGR 3458 001/14818 T 10:10am - 12:00pm
303 Hamilton Hall
Jeremy Dauber, Oliver Simons 3.00 19/30

CLSL GU4029 Bible, Literature, Theory. 3.00 points.

This class aims to introduce the students to the field of Bible and Literature, with special attention to the Hebrew Bible and to Literary Theory. We will read portions of Genesis, Numbers, Jonah, Hosea, Ezekiel, Esther, Mark, and Revelations, and discuss it in tandem with literary theory as well as 20th Century literary texts. Literary theory, this class will argue, is central for our understanding of the Bible, and, at the same time, the Biblical text is essential for the manner in which we theorize literature. Our discussion will be guided by four loosely interconnected questions: What insights can we gain about the theology of the Biblical text from a literary analysis? What happens to theological ideas once they are dramatized and narrativized? In what way can modern literary adaptations of the Bible contribute to our understanding of the Biblical text? How does the Bible challenge and trouble some of the perceived ideas of literary theory? The syllabus is divided into three units. The first unit —Bible and Literature in Theory, offers a survey of some of the scholarly approaches to the intersection of literature and theology. We will read theory that interrogates the intersection of theological and literary concepts, focusing on omniscience, authorship, temporality, characterization, and plot. The second unit —Literature as Biblical Exegesis, shifts the focus to a reading of Biblical texts in tandem with their modern literary and cinematic interpretations, focusing on Job and Esther. What, we will ask, happen to the Biblical world once it is being refracted through a modern sensibility? How can we take literature seriously as Biblical hermeneutics? The third unit —Recent Directions, introduces some of the recent directions in the field, focusing on how literature imagines the relationship between Bible, archeology, and modernity, as well as on the intersection of Biblical literature, fantasy, and science fiction

Fall 2024: CLSL GU4029
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
CLSL 4029 001/19494 M 4:10pm - 6:00pm
505 Lewisohn Hall
Offer Dynes 3.00 9/12

CLSL GU4012 Holocaust Literature: Critical Thinking in Dark Times. 3.00 points.

How do you write literature in the midst of catastrophe? To whom do you write if you don’t know whether your readership will survive? Or that you yourself will survive? How do you theorize society when the social fabric is tearing apart? How do you develop a concept of human rights at a time when mass extermination is deemed legal? How do you write Jewish history when Jewish future seems uncertain? This course offers a survey of the literature and intellectual history written during World War II (1939-1945) both in Nazi occupied Europe and in the free world, written primarily, but not exclusively, by Jews. We will read novels, poems, science fiction, historical fiction, legal theory and social theory and explore how intellectuals around the world responded to the extermination of European Jewry as it happened and how they changed their understanding of what it means to be a public intellectual, what it means to be Jewish, and what it means to be human. The aim of the course is threefold. First, it offers a survey of the Jewish experience during WWII, in France, Russia, Poland, Latvia, Romania, Greece, Palestine, Morocco, Iraq, the USSR, Argentina, and the United States. Second, it introduces some of the major contemporary debates in holocaust studies. Finally, it provides a space for a methodological reflection on how literary analysis, cultural studies, and historical research intersect

Fall 2024: CLSL GU4012
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
CLSL 4012 001/13510 W 10:10am - 12:00pm
616 Hamilton Hall
Offer Dynes 3.00 16/16

Religion

RELI UN2306 INTRO TO JUDAISM. 4.00 points.

A historical overview of Jewish belief and practice as these have crystallized and changed over the centuries. Special attention to ritual and worship, the forms of religious literature, central concepts, religious leadership and institutions, Israel among the nations

Fall 2024: RELI UN2306
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
RELI 2306 001/00035 T Th 8:40am - 9:55am
263 Macy Hall
Beth Berkowitz 4.00 61/60

RELI GU4509 CRIME/PUNISHMENT-JEWISH CULTRE. 4.00 points.

Jews have stood on every imaginable side of criminal justice: accuser and accused; prosecutor, defendant, and defender; judge and judged; spectator; storyteller; journalist; critic; advocate. How did Jews approach these various roles, and what notions of crime, criminality, punishment, and justice did they bring with them? This course crosses chronological eras, geographical regions, and academic disciplines to explore configurations of crime and punishment in Jewish cultures. It strives to achieve a balance in its coverage of Ashkenaz vs. Sefarad; ancient, late ancient, medieval, modern, and contemporary Judaisms; the specific and historical vs. the philosophical and theoretical; and varieties of sex, race, and gender. The role of classical Jewish texts, theology, and community in shaping Jewish approaches to criminal justice will all be considered

Fall 2024: RELI GU4509
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
RELI 4509 001/00356 T 2:10pm - 4:00pm
113 Milstein Center
Beth Berkowitz 4.00 21/20

Sociology

SOCI UN3285 ISRAELI SOC & ISR-PLS CONFLICT. 3.00 points.

The purpose of the course is to acquaint students with Israeli society through the lens of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. The underlying assumption in this course is that much of the social, economic, political, and cultural processes in contemporary Israel have been shaped by the 100-year Israeli- Arab/Palestinian conflict

Fall 2024: SOCI UN3285
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
SOCI 3285 001/10914 T Th 4:10pm - 5:25pm
520 Mathematics Building
Yinon Cohen 3.00 18/45

SOCI GR6161 Dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. 4.00 points.

The seminar will explore the Israeli-Palestinian (and Israeli-Arab) conflict from the beginning of the 20th century until today. The first part of the seminar will focus on the historical background informing the conflict and leading to the Palestinian refugee problem and the establishment of a Jewish, but not Palestinian, state in 1948. The second part of the seminar focuses on Palestinian-Arab citizens in Israel, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the settlement project, and possible political solutions, as well as the USA's role and its impact on the conflict, the occupation, and the current Gaza war

Women's Studies

WMST GU4336 GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN YIDDISH LITERATURE. 4.00 points.

Early publications in Yiddish, a.k.a. the mame loshn, ‘mother tongue,’ were addressed to “women and men who are like women,” while famous Yiddish writer, Sholem Aleichem, created a myth of “three founding fathers” of modern Yiddish literature, which eliminated the existence of Yiddish women writers. As these examples indicate, gender has played a significant role in Yiddish literary power dynamics. This course will explore representation of gender and sexuality in modern Yiddish literature and film in works created by Sholem Aleichem, Sholem Asch, Fradl Shtok, Sh. An-sky, Malka Lee, Anna Margolin, Celia Dropkin, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Kadya Molodowsky, Troim Katz Handler, and Irena Klepfisz. You will also acquire skills in academic research and digital presentation of the findings as part of the Mapping Yiddish New York project that is being created at Columbia. No knowledge of Yiddish required

Fall 2024: WMST GU4336
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
WMST 4336 001/00556 T 4:10pm - 6:00pm
306 Milbank Hall
Agnieszka Legutko 4.00 9/20

American Studies

AMST UN3931 Topics in American Studies. 4 points.

Please refer to the Center for American Studies for section descriptions

Spring 2024: AMST UN3931
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
AMST 3931 001/13243 M 2:10pm - 4:00pm
317 Hamilton Hall
Andrew Delbanco, Roger Lehecka 4 14/18
AMST 3931 002/13254 M 6:10pm - 8:00pm
317 Hamilton Hall
Benjamin Rosenberg 4 15/18
AMST 3931 003/13268 W 10:10am - 12:00pm
317 Hamilton Hall
Roosevelt Montas 4 13/15
AMST 3931 005/13277 W 2:10pm - 4:00pm
317 Hamilton Hall
Ross Posnock 4 5/15
Fall 2024: AMST UN3931
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
AMST 3931 001/12727 T 12:10pm - 2:00pm
317 Hamilton Hall
Jeremy Dauber 4 9/18
AMST 3931 002/12728 M 2:10pm - 4:00pm
317 Hamilton Hall
Casey Blake 4 13/18
AMST 3931 004/12730 T 2:10pm - 4:00pm
317 Hamilton Hall
Roosevelt Montas 4 10/18
AMST 3931 005/12732 T 4:10pm - 6:00pm
317 Hamilton Hall
Hilary-Anne Hallett 4 12/18
AMST 3931 006/12734 Th 10:10am - 12:00pm
317 Hamilton Hall
Mark Lilla 4 13/13

Yiddish

YIDD UN1101 ELEMENTARY YIDDISH I. 4.00 points.

This course offers an introduction to the language that has been spoken by the Ashkenazi Jews for more than a millennium, and an opportunity to discover a fabulous world of Yiddish literature, language and culture in a fun way. Using games, new media, and music, we will learn how to speak, read, listen and write in a language that is considered one of the richest languages in the world (in some aspects of vocabulary). We will also venture outside the classroom to explore the Yiddish world today: through field trips to Yiddish theater, Yiddish-speaking neighborhoods, Yiddish organizations, such as YIVO or Yiddish farm, and so on. We will also have Yiddish-speaking guests and do a few digital projects. At the end of the two-semester course, you will be able to converse in Yiddish on a variety of everyday topics and read most Yiddish literary and non-literary texts. Welcome to Yiddishland!

Spring 2024: YIDD UN1101
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
YIDD 1101 001/13595 M W 2:10pm - 4:00pm
318 Hamilton Hall
Noa Tsaushu 4.00 3/15
Fall 2024: YIDD UN1101
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
YIDD 1101 001/12835 M W 4:10pm - 6:00pm
316 Hamilton Hall
Joshua Beirich 4.00 8/15

YIDD UN2101 INTERMEDIATE YIDDISH I. 4.00 points.

Prerequisites: YIDD UN1101-UN1102 or the instructor's permission.
Prerequisites: YIDD UN1101-UN1102 or the instructor's permission. This year-long course is a continuation of Elementary Yiddish II. As part of the New Media in Jewish Studies Collaborative, this class will be using new media in order to explore and research the fabulous world of Yiddish literature, language, and culture, and to engage in project-oriented activities that will result in creating lasting multi-media online presentations. In addition to expanding the command of the language that has been spoken by the Ashkenazi Jews for more than a millennium, i.e. focusing on developing speaking, reading, writing and listening skills, and on the acquisition of more advanced grammatical concepts, students will also get some video and film editing training, and tutorials on archival research. The class will continue to read works of Yiddish literature in the original and will venture outside of the classroom to explore the Yiddish world today: through exciting field trips to Yiddish theater, Yiddish-speaking neighborhoods, YIVO, Yiddish Farm, and so on. And we will also have the Yiddish native-speaker guest series. Welcome back to Yiddishland!

Spring 2024: YIDD UN2101
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
YIDD 2101 001/13597 M W 2:10pm - 4:00pm
404 Hamilton Hall
Mikhl Yashinsky 4.00 3/15
Fall 2024: YIDD UN2101
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
YIDD 2101 001/12833 T Th 12:10pm - 2:00pm
313 Hamilton Hall
Agnieszka Legutko 4.00 4/15

YIDD UN3333 ADVANCED YIDDISH. 3.00 points.

May be repeated for credit.

Prerequisites: YIDD UN2101-YIDD UN2102 or the instructor's permission.
Prerequisites: YIDD UN2101-YIDD UN2102 or the instructor's permission. Reading of contemporary authors. Stress on word usage and idiomatic expression, discussion

Spring 2024: YIDD UN3333
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
YIDD 3333 001/13598 Th 1:00pm - 2:15pm
505 Lewisohn Hall
Agnieszka Legutko 3.00 4/15
YIDD 3333 001/13598 Th 2:30pm - 3:45pm
408 Hamilton Hall
Agnieszka Legutko 3.00 4/15
Fall 2024: YIDD UN3333
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
YIDD 3333 001/12832 M W 2:10pm - 3:25pm
315 Hamilton Hall
Eve Jochnowitz 3.00 4/15

YIDD GU4113 Yiddish for Academic Purposes I. 3 points.

The course focuses on developing skills in reading and translating Yiddish texts for academic research. It starts with an accelerated review of Yiddish grammar, accompanied by short texts and grammar and translation exercises, and then continues with reading a variety of more advanced literary and scholarly texts. Some of the material listed on the syllabus may be substituted by texts suggested by the students. The objective of the class is to acquire solid grammar base as well as reading proficiency that goes beyond word-for-word translation, includes skills of making reasonable guessed based on the context, and develops reading strategies. The course is designed primarily for graduate students who need to conduct research in Yiddish but it is open to everyone. No knowledge of Yiddish required but some background is strongly recommended.

Fall 2024: YIDD GU4113
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
YIDD 4113 001/12830 T 2:10pm - 4:00pm
313 Hamilton Hall
Agnieszka Legutko 3 2/15

Spring 2024 Courses

JWST GU4149 A History of Jewish-Muslim Encounters: From the Beginning of Islam Until Today. 4.00 points.

Much of what Americans know today about Jews and Muslims historically comes through journalistic depictions of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East. This seminar will introduce students to a far longer history of the many social, cultural, political, and economic encounters and entanglements between Jews and Muslims that spans centuries and continents. We will nuance narratives of both Jews and the Middle East as we move both chronologically and thematically to trace the experiences of Jews in Arabia before and with the rise of Islam, and how Jews and Muslims shaped the theology and religious literature of one another. We will examine how the Islamic conquests brought about the need to create an institutional framework for minorities, and the histories of Jewish communities under various Islamic caliphates, moving from Babylonia, to the eastern Mediterranean, and al-Andalus (Islamic Spain). Following Sephardic Jews with their expulsion in 1492, we will trace the formation of a Sephardic diaspora across the Ottoman Empire and North Africa. Finally, we will chart modern transformations in Jewish-Muslim encounters in daily life, popular culture, religious practice, and political movements. In doing so, we will consider their encounters as part of more global and interregional processes in the Middle East and beyond, such as colonialism, imperialism, nationalism, the formation of modern nation states in the Middle East, and the Israeli-Arab conflict. Through reading scholarly literature and analyzing primary documents—including letters and petitions, newspapers and state records, literature, music, and photography—this course guides students in thinking like historians, reading texts, and formulating interpretations. By centering a wide range of historical voices, we will examine how encounters between Jews and Muslims were shaped by gender, class, race, religious practice, and regionality. In taking our guiding frameworks and approaches from different disciplines and fields, including history, anthropology, visual culture, and postcolonial studies, we will work to better understand the long history of Jewish-Muslim encounters in the Middle East and beyond

Spring 2024: JWST GU4149
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
JWST 4149 001/14769 W 2:10pm - 4:00pm
507 Philosophy Hall
Rachel Smith 4.00 15/15

JWST GU4153 U.S. Civil and Human Rights Lawyers. 4.00 points.

What is the role of the individual in changing the legal system? To what extent, if any, can individuals transform legal norms? If transformation is possible, how do they go about it? What motivates them? Do these individuals understand themselves as having achieved their aims? This class examines these questions by exploring the work of “cause lawyers,” civil and human rights lawyers who engaged with the legal system for the purpose of changing it to better reflect their values and priorities. By studying works by and about cause lawyers and legal organizations, students will learn to identify overlooked sources of power in the U.S. and global legal system

Spring 2024: JWST GU4153
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
JWST 4153 001/14770 T 12:10pm - 2:00pm
325 Pupin Laboratories
Brittany Tevis 4.00 13/15

JWST GU4154 Magic in Jewish History and Culture. 4.00 points.

The belief in the possibility of certain actions to supernaturally alter the laws of nature can be found in virtually every culture and period of human history and the Jewish tradition was no exception. Drawing on a wide range of primary texts, visual media, and ethnographical studies this course will offer an introduction to the broad variety of Jewish magical beliefs and practices from the bible to the present. Students will learn about the various kinds of magic practiced by Jews in different historical periods and cultural contexts, the tensions that existed between magic and prevailing religious and social norms, and the ways magic was integrated as an acceptable and even valued aspect of Jewish culture. The course will also highlight the symbiotic relationship between Jewish magical traditions and those of other cultures, the social functions of Jewish magicians, and the role played by women as practitioners and transmitters of magical lore

Spring 2024: JWST GU4154
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
JWST 4154 001/18548 Th 4:10pm - 6:00pm
311 Fayerweather
Elly Moseson 4.00 12/15

CLYD UN3500 READINGS IN JEWISH LITERATURE: American Jewish Literature: A survey. 3.00 points.

This year has been designated the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Jewish life in America. In examining the work of some of the greatest Jewish writers to live in America – writers in English, Hebrew, and Yiddish, some well known, some less so – this course hopes to answer several related questions. How are the changing fortunes of American Jews reflected in their literary creativity? How does Jewish multilingualism – not only seen in different works, but within the same work – affect modes and styles of Jewish writing? And, perhaps most importantly, how does one define American Jewish writing in an age of increasingly complex affiliations and identifications among American Jews?

ENGL GU4938 HISTORY OF HORROR. 3.00 points.

This course will take a longue durée approach to one of the most widely-attested, and least studied, genres in the western canon: horror. We will take as an orienting assumption the idea that horror is a serious genre, capable of deep and sustained cultural, political, and historical critique, despite its contemporary status as “pulpy” or “pop culture.” We will ask what horror is as an affective and cognitive state, and we will also ask what horror means as a genre. We will ask how horror gets registered in narrative, drama, and in poetic form, and we will address how horror evolves over the centuries. Indeed, the course will range widely, beginning in the early 14th century, and ending in the second decade of the 21st. We will explore multiple different sub-genres of horror, ranging from lyric poetry to film, to explore how horror afforded authors with a highly flexible and experimental means of thinking through enduring questions about human life, linguistic meaning, social connectedness, connectedness with The Beyond, scientific inquiry, and violence. We will explore a series of through-lines: most notably that of cultural otherness, with Jewishness as a particularly archetypal other, thus the pronounced treatment of Jewish literature throughout the course. Other through-lines will include the ideas of placelessness, violence toward women, perverse Christian ritual, and the uncanny valley that separates humans from non-humans. Ultimately, we will try to map out the kinds of social, political, and historical work that horror can do

Spring 2024: ENGL GU4938
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
ENGL 4938 001/12372 T Th 8:40am - 9:55am
501 Northwest Corner
Jeremy Dauber, Eleanor Johnson 3.00 100/120
ENGL 4938 AU1/20981 T Th 8:40am - 9:55am
Othr Other
Jeremy Dauber, Eleanor Johnson 3.00 2/3

HIST UN3120 Censorship and Freedom of Expression in Early Modern Europe. 4 points.

In this course we will examine theoretical and historical developments that framed the notions of censorship and free expression in early modern Europe. In the last two decades, the role of censorship has become one of the significant elements in discussions of early modern culture. The history of printing and of the book, of the rise national-political cultures and their projections of control, religious wars and denominational schisms are some of the factors that intensified debate over the free circulation of ideas and speech. Indexes, Inquisition, Star Chamber, book burnings and beheadings have been the subjects of an ever growing body of scholarship. Field(s): EME

Spring 2024: HIST UN3120
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
HIST 3120 001/11491 W 10:10am - 12:00pm
302 Fayerweather
Elisheva Carlebach 4 13/16

HIST UN3604 Jews and the City. 4 points.

Priority given to majors and concentrators, seniors, and juniors.

Prerequisites: the instructor's permission.

Over the course of the nineteenth century, millions of Jews uprooted themselves from their places of birth and moved to cities scattered throughout the world.  This mass urbanization not only created new demographic centers of world Jewry, but also fundamentally transformed Jewish political and cultural life.  In this course, we shall analyze primary source material, literary accounts as well as secondary sources as we examine the Jewish encounter with the city, and see how Jewish culture was shaped by and helped to shape urban culture.  We shall compare Jewish life in six cities spanning from Eastern Europe to the United States and consider how Jews’ concerns molded the urban economy, urban politics, and cosmopolitan culture.  We shall also consider the ways in which urbanization changed everyday Jewish life.  What impact did it have on Jewish economic and religious life?  What role did gender and class play in molding the experiences of Jews in different cities scattered throughout the world?

Spring 2024: HIST UN3604
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
HIST 3604 001/11644 M 2:10pm - 4:00pm
328 Uris Hall
Rebecca Kobrin 4 12/20

MUSI GU4113 Medieval Mediterranean Love Songs. 4.00 points.

This seminar will focus on love poetry in the medieval western Mediterranean. Readings will consist primarily of medieval lyric in Old Occitan, Galician Portuguese, Old French, Italian, and Castilian in conversation with concurrent kindred forms of the lyric in classical Arabic and medieval Hebrew from medieval Iberia and Italy. Most weeks will include listening examples but a background in music is not a prerequisite. All texts will be available in translation; originals will also be made available. We will emphasize close reading and analysis, often addressing the relationship between text and music

Spring 2024: MUSI GU4113
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
MUSI 4113 001/11594 Th 12:10pm - 2:00pm
701a Dodge Building
Susan Boynton, Isabelle Levy 4.00 15/17

RELI UN3301 Hebrew Bible. 3 points.

BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Reason and Value (REA)., BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Ethics and Values.

Introduction to the literature of ancient Israel against the background of the ancient Near East.

Spring 2024: RELI UN3301
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
RELI 3301 001/00075 T Th 10:10am - 11:25am
207 Milbank Hall
Beth Berkowitz 3 23/30

RELI GR6420 RELIGION & PUBLIC LIFE. 4.00 points.

MDES UN1502 1ST YR MOD HEBREW:ELEM II. 5.00 points.

Prerequisites: MDES UN1501, or the equivalent, based on performance on the placement test.
Prerequisites: MDES UN1501, or the equivalent, based on performance on the placement test. Continued introduction to Hebrew, with equal emphasis on all languages skills. (See MDES UN1501.) No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class

Spring 2024: MDES UN1502
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
MDES 1502 001/12274 M T W Th 10:10am - 11:15am
101 Knox Hall
Illan Gonen 5.00 7/12
MDES 1502 002/12275 M T W Th 11:40am - 12:45pm
101 Knox Hall
Illan Gonen 5.00 10/12

MDES UN2502 2ND YR MODERN HEBREW II. 5.00 points.

Prerequisites: Second Year Hebrew: Intermediate I or instructor permission.
Prerequisites: Second Year Hebrew: Intermediate I or instructor permission. Equal emphasis is given to all language skills. Irregular categories of the Hebrew verb, prepositions and syntax are taught systematically. Vocabulary building. Daily homework includes grammar exercises, short answers, reading, or writing short compositions. Frequent vocabulary and grammar quizzes. (Students completing this course fulfill Columbia College and Barnard language requirement.) No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class

Spring 2024: MDES UN2502
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
MDES 2502 001/12292 M T W Th 11:40am - 12:45pm
114 Knox Hall
Danielle Katz-Shenhar 5.00 13/15

MDES UN2516 INT HEBREW:INTENSVE GRAMMAR REV. 4.00 points.

This course focuses on Modern Hebrew grammar, and verb conjugation in particular. It is designed for students with substantial knowledge of Modern Hebrew. Over the semester, students will systematically review the grammatical patterns of regular verbs (shlemim), and learn the grammatical patterns of the irregular verbs (gzarot), as well as several other grammatical topics. After successful completion of this course, the foreign language requirement will be fulfilled (for students of Columbia College and other academic units that require a 4th-semester proficiency). Successful completion of this course also allows students to register in third-year Modern Hebrew

Fall 2024: MDES UN2516
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
MDES 2516 001/13912 M Th 11:40am - 12:55pm
C01 Knox Hall
Illan Gonen 4.00 13/12

MDES UN2518 HEBREW FOR HERITAGE SPEAKERS. 4.00 points.

Prerequisites: Hebrew for Heritage Speakers I
Prerequisites: Hebrew for Heritage Speakers I Hebrew for Heritage Speakers II forms the second part of a year-long sequence with Hebrew for Heritage Speakers I. The course is intended for those who have developed basic speaking and listening skills through exposure to Hebrew at home or in day-school programs but do not use Hebrew as their dominant language and have not reached the level required for exemption from the Columbia language requirement. Heritage speakers differ in the degree of their fluency, but their vocabulary is often limited to topics in daily life and many lack skills in reading and writing to match their ability to converse. The course focuses on grammar and vocabulary enrichment, exposing students to a variety of cultural and social topics in daily life and beyond. By the end of the semester students are able to read and discuss simple texts and write about a variety of topics. Successful completion of the year-long sequence prepares students to enroll in third-year modern Hebrew. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class

Spring 2024: MDES UN2518
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
MDES 2518 001/12297 M W Th 10:10am - 11:25am
114 Knox Hall
Danielle Katz-Shenhar 4.00 6/12

MDES GU4511 3RD YR MODERN HEBREW II. 4.00 points.

Prerequisites: Third Year Modern Hebrew I or Hebrew for Heritage Speakers II
Prerequisites: Third Year Modern Hebrew I or Hebrew for Heritage Speakers II Focus on transition from basic language towards authentic Hebrew, through reading of un-adapted literary and journalistic texts without vowels. Vocabulary building. Grammar is reviewed in context. A weekly hour is devoted to practice in conversation. Daily homework includes reading, short answers, short compositions, listening to web-casts, or giving short oral presentations via voice e-mail. Frequent vocabulary quizzes. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class

Spring 2024: MDES GU4511
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
MDES 4511 001/12299 M W 1:10pm - 3:00pm
103 Knox Hall
Naama Harel, Danielle Katz-Shenhar 4.00 9/12

MDES GU4532 Beyond Human in Modern Hebrew Literature. 4.00 points.

“The possibility of pogroms,” claims Theodor Adorno, “is decided in the moment when the gaze of a fatally-wounded animal falls on a human being. The defiance with which he repels this gaze—’after all it's only an animal’—reappears irresistibly in cruelties done to human beings.” This course traces the development of Modern Hebrew literature, from its fin-de-siècle revival to contemporary Israeli fiction, through the prism of animality and animalization. We will focus on human-animal relations and animalization/dehumanization of humans in literary works by prominent Hebrew authors, including M.Y. Berdichevsky, Devorah Baron, S.Y. Agnon, Amos Oz, David Grossman, Orly Castel-Bloom, Almog Behar, Etgar Keret, and Sayed Kashua. Employing posthumanist and ecofeminist theoretical lenses, we will analyze the bio-political intersections of species and gender, as well as animalization as a process of otherization of marginalized ethnic groups. Throughout the course, we will ask questions, such as: why animals abound in Modern Hebrew literature? Are they merely metaphors for intra-human issues, or rather count as subjects? What literary devices are used to portray animals? How has the depiction of human-animal relations changed in Hebrew over the last 150 years? How do cultural and political frameworks inform representations of human-animal relations? No prior knowledge of Hebrew is required; all readings and class discussions will be in English. Course participants with reading knowledge of Hebrew are encouraged to consult the original literary texts, provided by the instructor upon request

Spring 2024: MDES GU4532
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
MDES 4532 001/13884 W 2:10pm - 4:00pm
207 Knox Hall
Yael Flusser, Naama Harel 4.00 11/20

YIDD UN1101 ELEMENTARY YIDDISH I. 4.00 points.

This course offers an introduction to the language that has been spoken by the Ashkenazi Jews for more than a millennium, and an opportunity to discover a fabulous world of Yiddish literature, language and culture in a fun way. Using games, new media, and music, we will learn how to speak, read, listen and write in a language that is considered one of the richest languages in the world (in some aspects of vocabulary). We will also venture outside the classroom to explore the Yiddish world today: through field trips to Yiddish theater, Yiddish-speaking neighborhoods, Yiddish organizations, such as YIVO or Yiddish farm, and so on. We will also have Yiddish-speaking guests and do a few digital projects. At the end of the two-semester course, you will be able to converse in Yiddish on a variety of everyday topics and read most Yiddish literary and non-literary texts. Welcome to Yiddishland!

Spring 2024: YIDD UN1101
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
YIDD 1101 001/13595 M W 2:10pm - 4:00pm
318 Hamilton Hall
Noa Tsaushu 4.00 3/15
Fall 2024: YIDD UN1101
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
YIDD 1101 001/12835 M W 4:10pm - 6:00pm
316 Hamilton Hall
Joshua Beirich 4.00 8/15

YIDD UN1102 ELEMENTARY YIDDISH II. 4.00 points.

This course offers an introduction to the language that has been spoken by the Ashkenazi Jews for more than a millennium, and an opportunity to discover a fabulous world of Yiddish literature, language and culture in a fun way. Using games, new media, and music, we will learn how to speak, read, listen and write in a language that is considered one of the richest languages in the world (in some aspects of vocabulary). We will also venture outside the classroom to explore the Yiddish world today: through field trips to Yiddish theater, Yiddish-speaking neighborhoods, Yiddish organizations, such as YIVO or Yiddish farm, and so on. We will also have Yiddish-speaking guests and do a few digital projects. At the end of the two-semester course, you will be able to converse in Yiddish on a variety of everyday topics and read most Yiddish literary and non-literary texts. Welcome to Yiddishland!

Spring 2024: YIDD UN1102
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
YIDD 1102 001/13596 T Th 10:10am - 12:00pm
507 Hamilton Hall
Ethan Fraenkel 4.00 14/15

YIDD UN2102 INTERMEDIATE YIDDISH II. 4.00 points.

Prerequisites: YIDD UN1101-UN1102 or the instructor's permission.
Prerequisites: YIDD UN1101-UN1102 or the instructor's permission. This year-long course is a continuation of Elementary Yiddish II. As part of the New Media in Jewish Studies Collaborative, this class will be using new media in order to explore and research the fabulous world of Yiddish literature, language, and culture, and to engage in project-oriented activities that will result in creating lasting multi-media online presentations. In addition to expanding the command of the language that has been spoken by the Ashkenazi Jews for more than a millennium, i.e. focusing on developing speaking, reading, writing and listening skills, and on the acquisition of more advanced grammatical concepts, students will also get some video and film editing training, and tutorials on archival research. The class will continue to read works of Yiddish literature in the original and will venture outside of the classroom to explore the Yiddish world today: through exciting field trips to Yiddish theater, Yiddish-speaking neighborhoods, YIVO, Yiddish Farm, and so on. And we will also have the Yiddish native-speaker guest series. Welcome back to Yiddishland!

YIDD UN3333 ADVANCED YIDDISH. 3.00 points.

May be repeated for credit.

Prerequisites: YIDD UN2101-YIDD UN2102 or the instructor's permission.
Prerequisites: YIDD UN2101-YIDD UN2102 or the instructor's permission. Reading of contemporary authors. Stress on word usage and idiomatic expression, discussion

Spring 2024: YIDD UN3333
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
YIDD 3333 001/13598 Th 1:00pm - 2:15pm
505 Lewisohn Hall
Agnieszka Legutko 3.00 4/15
YIDD 3333 001/13598 Th 2:30pm - 3:45pm
408 Hamilton Hall
Agnieszka Legutko 3.00 4/15
Fall 2024: YIDD UN3333
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
YIDD 3333 001/12832 M W 2:10pm - 3:25pm
315 Hamilton Hall
Eve Jochnowitz 3.00 4/15

YIDD UN3500 SURVEY OF YIDDISH LIT (ENG). 3.00 points.

For the better part of a thousand years Yiddish was the primary language of European Jewry – and the language of its most exciting and vibrant literary and cultural achievement. This class hopes to trace the history of that literature – which is at its heart a history of much of the Jewish people as it lived traditionally faced modernity and suffered catastrophe. Stories poems plays – by authors ranging from Nobel prize winners like Isaac Bashevis Singer to seventeenth century women like Gluckel of Hameln – are not only great works of art in their own right but they open a window into a largely vanished world

Spring 2024: YIDD UN3500
Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment
YIDD 3500 001/13605 Th 10:10am - 12:00pm
707 Hamilton Hall
Jeremy Dauber 3.00 4/25

Additional Courses, Including Those Not Currently Offered

Germanic Languages
YIDD UN2102INTERMEDIATE YIDDISH II
YIDD UN3333ADVANCED YIDDISH
YIDD UN3520MAGIC & MONSTERS IN YIDD LIT
YIDD W3550Twentieth-Century Yiddish Literature and Film [In English]
History
HIST UN2611JEWS & JUDAISM IN ANTIQUITY
HIST UN2628HIST STATE OF ISRAEL,1948-PRES
HIST UN2630American Jewish History
HIST UN2657Medieval Jewish Cultures
HIST UN3604Jews and the City
HIST W4610The Ancient Jews and the Mediterranean
HIST W4611Jews and Muslims in the Middle Ages
HIST W4635Ancient Jewish Texts: Leviticus Rabbah
Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies
MDES UN15021ST YR MOD HEBREW:ELEM II
MDES UN25022ND YR MODERN HEBREW II
MDES W1516Second Year Hebrew: Intensive Grammar Review
MDES UN3541Zionism: A Cultural Perspective
CLME W3546Intro to Hebrew Literature
MDES GU45103RD YR MODERN HEBREW I
Religion (Barnard)
RELI W4501Psalms Through the Commentary of the Baal Shem Tov
RELI W4505The Beginnings of Jewish Mysticism
RELI W4508Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah
Religion
RELI UN3501Introduction To the Hebrew Bible
RELI V3512The Bible and Its Interpreters
RELI UN3315Readings in Kabbalah
RELI V3571Judaism, Jewishness, and Modernity
RELI V3585The Sephardic Experience
RELI W4507Readings in Hasidism
RELI W4508Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah
RELI GU4637TALMUDIC NARRATIVE
RELI GU4515Reincarnation and Technology
Sociology
SOCI UN3285ISRAELI SOC & ISR-PLS CONFLICT
SOCI W3930Immigration and Ethnicity in Israel
Women's Studies
WMST BC3122Contemporary American-Jewish Women Writers: 1990 to the Present
WMST GU4302The Second Wave and Jewish Women's Artistic Responses: 1939-1990
WMST GU4310CONTEM AMER JEWISH WOMEN'S LIT