The modern era, from the end of the 18^th century onwards, was a period of intense change and upheaval in the history of populations throughout the world.  Alongside the processes of industrialization, urbanization, and immigration, new ideologies of identity developed.  Jews were required to define their identity anew and faced pressures they had not previously known.  In this course, we will focus on formative events and processes in the history of the places in which the Jews lived, the new conditions to which they needed to adapt, and their status within those new conditions.  We will move from one center of change to another: from the American society of immigrants to Revolutionary France, from there to Germany and Russia, the place of residence of the majority of the world's Jews at the beginning of the modern era, and we will conclude with the Muslim regions—the Ottoman Empire and colonial North Africa.  In each of these regions, we will examine the effect of societal changes on the Jews' status, questions of Jewish identity, and their demographic and immigration trends.  For the sake of comparison, we will use this framework to study in what ways the Jews' fate was similar to that of other minority groups, and in what ways it differed. 

This course will integrate students' own family histories with the material taught: students will be asked to present, on a voluntary basis, their family histories and analyze them in light of the processes and concepts studied in the course. Through the lectures and student presentations, the course will touch on nearly all areas of the Jewish Diaspora.