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This course will explore the historical development of "Jewish tradition" through its texts and contexts, theory and practice. What is this tradition based on? How has it been shaped? We will examine the values it represents and the mechanisms of transmitting these values from generation to generation. Is it permissible to touch a menstruating woman? Or eat with gentiles? Who is allowed to study the Torah? Why does the morning prayer Jewish men say in the morning include negative definition of their identity when they thank God for not making them a woman, or a gentile, or a slave? The above questions are questions hotly debated by rabbis. Reading major sources on which the Jewish tradition is based: The Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, Rabbinic responsa, Jewish chronicles will help us to explore questions of identity, religious and gender, questions of boundaries, and of role of history and memory in fashioning collective identities. Reading these texts we will also explore their historical context in which they emerged and how this historical context shaped them, and how the subsequent generations had to wrestle with these established traditions to understand them in their own contexts.
COURSE FORMAT: Seminar
Level: UGRD Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS HIST Grading Mode: Graded
Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.
Last Updated on MAR-30-2006
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459