
ANTI-JUDAISM & ANTI-SEMITISM
REL/JSP 200
Spring 2022
T/Th 12:30-1:50
Shaffer Art Building 121
Zachary Braiterman
office: HL 509
ZOOM office hours: W 11:00-12:00 or by appointment
zbraiter@syr.edu
Examines anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism as a social form, anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic tropes and figures, with an emphasis on history and religion. Topics include social-political domination, racial prejudice, and religious conflict. In addition to and alongside inter-religious polemics, primarily between Christians and Jews, the course examines religious and political forms of Jewish response and resistance to anti-Jewish violence and anti-Semitism in the ancient, medieval, and modern world. Special attention goes to primary anti-Semitic and Jewish source material.
Readings:
1/25 First Day: Jews, Judaism, Anti-Semitism, Anti-Judaism (no assignment)
ROMANS & EGYPTIANS & RABBIS
1/27 Peter Schäfer, Judeophobia: Attitudes toward the Jews in the Ancient World, chp. 11; Tacitus, The Histories: book 5 at Blackboard (in one file)
2/1 Josephus, Against Apion: book 2: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/josephus/apion-2.html
2/3 Mishnah and Midrash: selections: Jacob Neusner Ancient Israel After Catastrophe; selections from Midrash at Blackboard
CHRISTIANITY
2/8 New Testament: Paul, Epistle to the Romans at Blackboard
2/10 New Testament: Gospel of Matthew at Blackboard
2/15 Early Church: Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism, chp. 3
2/17 Jews and Power in Medieval Europe (Crusades): Shalom Spiegel, The Last Trial, especially chapter 9 at Blackboard
2/22 Jews and Power in Medieval Europe (Blood Libel): Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism, chp. 5
ISLAM
2/24 Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism, chp.4; TBA
MODERNITY
3/1 Martin Luther, Jews and Their Lies at Blackboard; at Blackboard
3/3 John Locke, “Letter on Tolerance,” George Washington’s Letter to Jews of Newport on two separate files at Blackboard
3/8 Lessing, The Jews at Blackboard
3/10 ZOOM SESSION: Enlightenment: Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism, pp. 300-360
3/22 Civil and Political Emancipation: Marx, “On The Jewish Question” at Blackboard
3/24 Dreyfus Affair, selections from Norman Kleeblatt, The Dreyfus Affair: Art Truth, and Justice at Blackboard
3/29 Jews and Gender and Race: Sander Gilman at Blackboard
3/3` Protocols of the Elders of Zion at Blackboard (focus on so-called protocols 1-24) https://www.gutenberg.org/files/64977/64977-h/64977-h.htm#FNanchor_2
ZIONISM, AMERICA, HOLOCAUST
4/5 Zionism: Pinsker, “Autoemancipation,” and TBA at Blackboard
4/7 Holocaust: selections Mein Kampf at Blackboard (In class screening Der Ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew)
4/12 American Anti-Semitism: Leonard Dinnerstein, Antisemitism in America, chps. 7-8 at Blackboard
POSTWAR & CONTEMPORARY
4/14 ZOOM SESSION Decolonialism: Albert Memmi, Portrait of the Jew, preface,and chps. 2, 5, 11, 14, 17, 18 at Blackboard
4/19 Anti-Zionism: James Loefller, Rooted Cosmopolitans, chps. 9-10 at Blackboard
4/21 Blacks and Jews: James Baldwin, Henry Lewis Gates, bell hooks at Blackboard (on one document)
4/26 Feminism: Letty Cottin Pogrebin, “Anti-Semitism in The Women’s Movement,” Deborah, Golda, and Me, chp.11, and Melanie Kaye-Kantrowitz and Irena Klepfisz, In Gerangl/In Struggle” (on one document at Blackboard)
4/28 Contemporary Christianity: Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew, chp. 5 at Blackboard
5/3 Nazis, Jews, and Whiteness, TBA
be interested in yer take on the “new” testament bits
in the here and now
https://twitter.com/mehdirhasan/status/1491946010972721152?cxt=HHwWgMC4gcG_urQpAAAA