NEJS 164B. SOCIOLOGY of AMERICAN JEWISH COMMUNITY. Spring 2017

NEJS 164b. SOCIOLOGY OF AMERICAN JEWISH COMMUNITY. Spring 2017

Prof. Sylvia Barack Fishman

Phone: 62065. Lown 308

Office hours, Tuesdays 10:30-noon, and by appointment.

Course meets Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3:30-4:50pm

Who is a “Jew” and what is “Jewishness” in America today? How does the ethnic-religious category of Jewishness in America today compare with historical ideas about Jews, Judaism, and Jewishness in the past? This course explores transformations in modern American Jewish societies, first surveying Jewish social groups in historical Jewish communities and then focusing on American Jews in the second half of the 20th century. The course uses a diverse, interdisciplinary approach, analyzing material culture, literature, and film as well as sociological and social-historical texts. It is the goal of this course that students learn about the field of the social scientific study of American Jewish societies as a discipline, as well as about Jewish societies in America today.

Assignments:

All students are expected to do each of the required readings by the date indicated, and to be ready to participate in class discussions. A written mid-term examination will take place during the class period on October 27, 2015. The major research paper (15-20 pages) will be due on December 8, 2015, the last day of class, at 5 p.m.

If desired a separate graduate discussion section will be arranged for graduate students.

Students with documented learning disabilities or other health issues should inform the professor as soon as possible, and should provide written documentation.

Four-Credit Course (with three hours of class-time per week)

Success in this 4 credit hour course is based on the expectation that students will spend a minimum of 9 hours of study time per week in preparation for class (readings, papers, discussion sections, preparation for exams, etc.).

Required Texts

1. Sylvia Barack Fishman, The Way Into the Varieties of Jewishness
2. William Helmreich, excerpts from Against All Odds (Latte)
3. Short story, Philip Roth, “Eli the Fanatic” (Latte)
4. Charles Silberman, excerpts from A Certain People (Latte)
5. Jenna Joselit, excerpts from The Wonders of America (Latte)
6. Gans, "Symbolic Ethnicity: The Future of Ethnic Groups and Cultures in America,"Ethnic and Racial Studies 2, No. 1 (January, 1979. Latte)
7. Marshall Sklare, “The Image of the Good Jew in Lakeville” (Latte)
8. Harriet Hartman, “American Jewish Families,” American Jewish Year Book 2016; Sylvia Barack Fishman, “Introduction” to Love, Marriage, and Jewish Families: Paradoxes of a Social Revolution (Latte).
9. Films, “Hester Street,” “Goodbye, Columbus,” Latte
10. Sylvia Barack Fishman, Jewish Life and American Culture,chapter one (Latte)
11. Steven M. Cohen “The Differential Impact of Jewish Education on Adult Jewish Identity,” in Jack Wertheimer, ed., Family Matters: Jewish Education in An Age of Choice (University Press of New England, 2007), pp. 34-58. Sylvia Barack Fishman, "Generating Jewish Connections: Conversations with Jewish Teenagers, Their Parents, and Jewish Educators and Thinkers,"pp. 181-212. (Latte)
12. Shaul Kelner, Tours That Bind: Diaspora, Pilgrimage, and Israeli Birthright Tourism (pp. xv-46, 82-108, Latte); Leonard Saxe et al, excerpts from CMJS evaluations on Birthright Israel trips (Latte)
13. Sylvia Barack Fishman, “Gender and American Jews,” American Jewish Year Book 2014 (Latte).
14. Steven M. Cohen, "From Jewish People to Jewish Purpose: Establishment Leaders and Their Nonestablishment Successors," in Jack Wertheimer, ed., The New Jewish Leaders: Reshaping the American Jewish Landscape (Latte)
15. Peter Beinart, Steven M. Cohen, Len Saxe et al, readings on Israel and American Jews

SCHEDULE OF READINGS AND DISCUSSION TOPICS BY CLASS PERIOD

Tuesday January 17--Introduction. Overview of course semester. Methods of studying American Jews as a contemporary social group: Triangulation--Using quantitative and qualitative research and cultural artifacts to understand American Jewish life. Are American Jews distinctive—and is America distinctive in Jewish history?

January 19 & 24—Antecedents:Read Fishman, The Way into the Varieties of Jewishness, Introduction and Chapters One and Two.Characteristics of Jewish societies in historical, pre-modern Jewish communities. How did Sephardic and Ashkenazi communities differ in the social characteristics they developed? How did historical Jewish communities understand past communities? How did Emancipation, and the Jewish Enlightenment change Jewish life?

January 26—Immigration: In class, view “Hester Street”

January 31 —Immigration: Read Fishman, Varieties of Jewishness, Chapter Three. Early waves of Jewish immigration to America; Pre-immigration Jewish societies in the 19th century; How did modernity transform Jewish identity, values and behavior in various geographical areas? Immigration to the United States before World War II.

February 2—Post-Holocaust Immigration: Holocaust survivors; Read selections by Helmreich, Against All Odds; read Philip Roth, “Eli the Fanatic.”

February 7—Immigration 1950s-present: former Soviet Union, Israelis, North and South Africa, Latin America, Canada

February 9, 14 & 16—American Judaisms:Read Varieties of Jewishness, Chapters 4-5-6-7. Varieties of American Jewish religious culture and how they grew. Interactions, mutual influences, and conflicts between Reform, Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Secular Jewish Humanist, Jewish Renewal wings of Judaism, Post-denominationalism, and others. Defining inclusion and exclusion within diverse wings of Judaism. Galvanizing issues within each movement.

February 20-24 Brandeis Spring Break

February 28 & March 2--Adaptation, Acculturation, and Change: Read Charles Silberman, selections from A Certain People, Jenna Joselit,, “Red Letter Days” and “Kitchen Judaism,” from The Wonders of America, Fishman, Jewish Life and American Culture, chapter One.Jews adapting to American middle class culture at mid-century (behavior, material culture). How did educational and occupational factors transform Jewish life? What were the agendas of acculturation? How were Jewish ceremonies and institutions and concepts of Jewish behavior transformed? How did Jewishness affect Jewish secular education and occupation, and the socio-economic status?

TUESDAY MARCH 7, IN-CLASS MID-TERM EXAMINATION

Thursday, March 9--American Jewish families, view film in class: “Goodbye, Columbus.”

March 14 & 16: American Jewish families, continued-- Read Harriet Hartman, “American Jewish Families,” American Jewish Year Book 2016; Sylvia Barack Fishman, “Introduction” to Love, Marriage, and Jewish Families: Paradoxes of a Social Revolution (Latte).

The Jewish family as the basic building block of Jewish society. American Jewish individuals and families at mid-20th-century and beyond: changing patterns of family formation, education and occupation, gender construction, and identity. Gender issues as one foundation of Jewish political liberalism. Real and “reel” Jewish families.

March 21 & 23—Ethnicity and Jewish Identity:Read Herbert Gans, "Symbolic Ethnicity: The Future of Ethnic Groups and Cultures in America,"Ethnic and Racial Studies 2, No. 1 (January, 1979), and Marshall Sklare, “The Image of the Good Jew in Lakeville.”Marshall Sklare and the creation of the field of sociology of American Jews; how can we study American Jewish behavior, attitudes, social change. Sklare’s analysis of American Jewish identity and social change. Interpretive framework: how a social scientist positions him/herself. Jews adapting to American middle class culture at mid-century (behavior, material culture). What were the agendas of acculturation? What is “ethnic identity”? What is “social capital”? The image of the “good Jew” in You-ville.

March 28 & 30-- Jewish education: “The Differential Impact of Jewish Education on Adult Jewish Identity,” Steven M. Cohen in Jack Wertheimer, ed., Family Matters: Jewish Education in An Age of Choice (University Press of New England, 2007), pp. 34-58.Sylvia Barack Fishman, "Generating Jewish Connections: Conversations with Jewish Teenagers, Their Parents, and Jewish Educators and Thinkers," in Jack Wertheimer, ed., Family Matters: Jewish Education in An Age of Choice (University Press of New England, 2007), pp. 181-212.Read selections from Shaul Kelner, Tours That Bind: Diaspora, Pilgrimage, and Israeli Birthright Tourism (pp. xv-46, 82-108), and Saxe, et. al. CMJS Birthright Israel evaluation reports.What are the various forms of formal and informal Jewish education? How did they develop? What impact do they have on Jewish values and behaviors?

April 4—Changing relationship of U.S. Jews to Israel: Read Beinart, Cohen, Saxe on Latte on “Distancing.” The impact of the “Six Day War” on American Jewish attachments to Israel. Israel, the dream, the ideal, and the transforming reality in the minds of American Jews. How did American Jew attachment to Israel grow? Has is receded or simply become more complicated? Are there generational or denominational differences in feelings about Israel? How does attachment to Israel interact with American Jewish political values? How do college students and GenXers relate to Israel?

April 6--What is Anti-Semitism and how has it changed over history?The “rediscovery” of the Holocaust and Holocaust memorializing. New forms of antisemitism and antiJewishness.

PASSOVER APRIL 10-18

April 20—American Jewish organizationsRead selections from Jack Wertheimer, ed., The New Jewish Leaders: Reshaping the American Jewish Landscape, Steven M. Cohen, "From Jewish People to Jewish Purpose: Establishment Leaders and Their Nonestablishment Successors." Jewish organizations: What they are and how they function in American Jewish communities on a local and national level. What is the role of American Jewish organizations today, and how has the relationship of American Jews to their organizations changed? The impact of geographical mobility and regionalism on Jewish organizational life; the new crop of American Jewish organizations; the impact of feminism on Jewish organizational life; organizations try to adapt to meet changing American Jewish psyche.

April 25—Read Sylvia Barack Fishman, “Gender and American Jews,” American Jewish Year Book 2014; Gender and new Jewish patterns of (1) education and occupation; (2) connection between secular and religious education and later identification; (3) family formation and construction of Jewish households.Jewish feminism as a force for conflict and revitalization.

April 27—American Jewish culture today: What can we learn about American Jewishness from cultural expressions? What do sociological data tell us? How do these sources of information conflict with or complement each other.

May 2—Wrap-up session .Read Varieties of Jewishness concluding chapter. What is American Jewish identity today? Have we arrived at a post-denominational time? Do denominations have significance to young American Jews today? New challenges to the American Jewish family: intermarriage, non-marriage, alternative households. What is a “Jewish family” today?

FINAL PAPERS DUE TUESDAY MAY 2, 5 P.M.

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