JEWISH STUDIES SEMINAR: ISRAEL

JSP/REL 439

Spring 2025

W 3:45-6:30, Huntington Hall 103

Zachary Braiterman

Office hours: W 11-12 or by appointment

zbraiter@syr.edu

Zionism was a secular movement that aspired to establish a homeland for the Jewish people. What was the role that Judaism was to play in that homeland? Was what Herzl, a founder of modern Zionism, called the New Society to be a national home or secular state of all its citizens, a Jewish State or a state of the Jews? We will examine classical Zionism and the role of Judaism before turning to contemporary formations of religion and politics in the State of Israel after the 1967 war. Careful attention will be given to “the question of Palestine,” religion and religious violence, the challenge of democratic citizenship and inequality in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural country, and the place of Israel in the Middle East.

Readings:

1/15    

Introduction to class (no assignment)

Documents: The Balfour Declaration in Document Pack

CLASSICAL ZIONISM

1/22     

Political Zionism & Cultural Zionism:

Pinsker, Auto-Emancipation in The Zionist Idea

Herzl, The Jewish State in The Zionist Idea

Ahad Ha’Am in The Zionist Idea

1/29    

Culture Critics & Socialist Zionism:

Berdichevski, Brenner, and Klatzkin in The Zionist Idea

Borochov and Gordon in The Zionist Idea

2/5       

Religious Zionism:

Ravitzky Chp 1

Selections form Abraham Isaac Kook, Orot on Blackboard

PARTITION NAKBA INDEPENDENCE

2/12    

Buber, A Land of Two People, pp.106-35 

Jabotinsky, “Iron Wall” and “Beitar Ideology” at Blackboard

Edward Said, The Question of Palestine, chapter 1-3

2/19    

Nakba

Constantine K. Zurayk, T he Meaning of the Disaster on Blackboard

2/26     

Mizrachi Jews

Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff, Mongrels or Marvels, chps.12-16

RELIGION STATE SOCIETY AFTER 1967                         

3/5       

Settlers and Settlements

Ravitzky chp.3

Amos Oz selection, Here and There in the Land of Israel on Blackboard

Documents: The Palestinian National Covenant, UN Resolution 242

3/19    

Ultra Orthodox

Ravitzky chp. 4

Brown, “Jewish Political Theology: The Doctrine of Daat Torah as a Case Study”                

Amos Oz, In the Land of Israel on Blackboard

3/26     

Mizrachi Jews and Judaism in Israel:

Oz, In the Land of Israel on Blackboard      

TBA Nissim Mizrachi on Blackboard

4/2       

Religion and Culture

Ethnocracy: Gavison, Smoohah, Ghanem on Blackboard

Liebman & Katz (ed), The Jewishness of Israelis, pp.1-37 on Blackboard

Nissim Mizrachi, last chapter on Blackboard

PLACE AND SPACE

4/9       

Herzl, Old New Land

4/16    

Scheindlin, Crooked Timber of Israeli Democracy, section VI on Blackboard

Documents Hamas Charters + and Israel Nation State Law in Documents Handout

4/23     

Tawfik Canaan, Haunted Springs and Water Demons in Palestine

FINAL PAPER: DUE LAST DAY OF EXAM WEEK