Current Course Offerings

Cross listed as: Jewish Studies 105 or GNS 105; cross-listed with graduate-level 405
Prof. Matthew Johnson
MTWR: 8:50-9:40
Credits: 4
Course Level: Elementary
L&S Credit Type: Counts as Liberal Arts and Science credit in L&S
Description: Learn Yiddish, the language of east European Jewry and its diaspora. A language of politics, theater, and folklore. A language of the classroom and the bakery, the factory and the field, the synagogue and the street, from Warsaw to Stockholm, Berlin to Buenos Aires, New York to Madison, WI. Yiddish offers a gateway to explore the history of Jewish culture. No prerequisites required. All are welcome.

Cross listed as: Jewish Studies 269, German 269 or LitTrans 269
Prof. Sunny Yudkoff
TR 11:00am – 12:15pm
Credits: 3
Level: Elementary
Breadth: Literature
L&S Credit Type: Counts as Liberal Arts and Science credit in L&S
Description: Exploration of European Yiddish fiction, poetry, folklore, and cinema, with a focus on works of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Cross listed as: Jewish Studies 269, German 269 or LitTrans 269
Prof. Sunny Yudkoff
MW 4:00 – 5:15pm
Credits: 3
Level: Intermediate
Breadth: Literature
L&S Credit Type: Counts as Liberal Arts and Science credit in L&S
Description:The image and representation of the “Jew” and Jews in the literatures and cultures of the Slavic countries of Eastern Europe, including Russia, Poland, Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia. Both pre- and post-Holocaust texts will be read and critically examined.

Cross listed as: Jewish Studies 318 or LitTrans 318
Prof. Sunny Yudkoff
TR 9:30-10:45
Credits: 3
Level: Intermediate
Breadth: Literature
L&S Credit Type: Counts as Liberal Arts and Science credit in L&S
Description: Pre-modern Jewish society’s breakdown, immigration, the challenges of integration and exclusion, and the establishment of new communities will serve as a backdrop for the analysis and comparison of Jewish literary texts written in Hebrew, Yiddish, German, Russian, and English.

Cross listed as Jewish Studies 219 or History 219
Prof. Tony Michels
Lecture: MWF 1:20pm – 2:10PM
+ 4 discussion sections
Credits: 4
Level: Intermediate
Gen Ed: Ethnic Studies
Breadth: Humanities
L&S Credit Type: Counts as Liberal Arts and Science credit in L&S
Description: By the 1950s, the United States became home to the largest Jewish community at that time.  Why did millions of Jews come to the United States?  How has life in a liberal political and capitalist economic order shaped the Jewish experience in the United States?  In turn, how have Jews influenced American culture, politics, and society?  This course surveys the history of American Jews from the 17th century to the 21st century.  Using Jews as the primary, though not only, case, the course examines themes in the history of immigration, ethnicity, and religion.  Topics include patterns of political activity, social mobility, processes of integration and exclusion, Jewish culture, religion, and problems in community-building.

Cross-listed as Jewish Studies 310 or History 310
Instructor: Ofer Ashkenazi
MW 2:30- 3:45
+ 4 discussion sections
Credits: 4
Breadth: Humanities
Level: Intermediate
Description: References to the Holocaust abound in contemporary political debates and in our popular culture. But most people know very little about the history of the Holocaust, despite the mountains of superb historical scholarship that experts in the field have produced over decades of dedicated research. Utilize correspondence, diaries, or other firsthand accounts of Holocaust victims, together with study of the larger events around them, to reconstruct the experiences of ordinary families swept up in the Nazi genocide.