Theatre usually held a marginal place within traditional Jewish culture. Yet despite (or perhaps because) of this, in the rare occasions when Jewish societies were theatrically active, this activity allowed for new dramatic interpretations and subversive bodily performances of Jewish tradition. With the emergence of modern Yiddish theatre at the end of the nineteenth century, theatre became a prominent arena for performing the fundamental conflicts of a culture that goes through rapid changes: modernization, immigration, urbanization, and secularization. Alongside it, modern Hebrew theatre participated in the construction of a new national culture and faced the dramaturgical and performative questions that arose with the Zionist project: writing and acting in Hebrew; space and body; myth and the Jewish past. This course will introduce the students to these dynamics.