2012-2013 Academic Catalog

Dec 07, 2025

2012-2013 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

HIST 283 - Eastern European Jewish Diaspora: Culture and Community in Twentieth Century US, USSR and Israel

Type of Course: Lecture, Discussion

This upper-level lecture course surveys the impact of transnational migration on the making of three of the largest Jewish communities in the twentieth century, in Israel, the US and the USSR. Forged in the aftermath of the break-up of the Russian empire and radically transformed by war, revolution, secularization, economic restructuring and national politics, Israeli, American and Soviet Jewries have displaced European Jewry from the cultural map; in fact, about two-thirds of the Jewish people living today claim descent from the Eastern European Jewish diaspora. Through a variety of primary and secondary sources, we will examine the history and contemporary legacy of this momentous shift in Jewish experience and expression.