What does 'Judaism as Culture' Mean?
This course will be dedicated to the significance of the notion of Judaism as a Culture, a viewpoint based on Ahad Ha'am criticism of Herzl's political Zionism. The concept of Judaism as a Culture was nourished from various philosophies of culture, especially those that rose from the 18th century, and its target was to replace the reductive conceptions of Judaism as religion or as nationality. Ahad Ham and Bialik’s idea of cultural Judaism was rather elementary but during the last century various new general conceptions of culture have been developed. These can be serious replacements of the narrow conceptions of religion or nationality which are in the background of many controversies in Israel and outside Israel. The course will open with some contemporary approaches to the concept of culture and their meaning for contemporary Jewish life.