 2016 - 2017 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 0677-4090-01 | Secularization & Uprooting in the History and Literature of the Jews of E.Europe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| FACULTY OF HUMANITIES | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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University credit hours: 4.0
Course description
Secularization and Uprooting in the History and Literature of the Jews of Eastern Europe
The seminar will follow the experience of disengagement from the old Jewish tradition and from the world of religious observance, as expressed in a variety of sources of the Jews of Eastern Europe from the late 18th century onward. This experience left its mark on Modern Hebrew literature, and in fact shaped the contours of the modern history of the Jews, which was a constant struggle between traditionalists and reformers over the future picture of the Jewish people and of the authoritative sources of its identity. Based on various sources from memoir literature, autobiography, prose and poetry, we will attempt to analyze the historical roots of modern Jewish secularism, while identifying its complex stages and patterns. The most known literary embodiment of this process is the ‘uprooted’, the one who left the confines of tradition, but did not assimilate into the secular world opposing it, and remained suspended between the two. This hero is usually absorbed in intensive self-reflection, immersed in a state of wandering, and of social and intellectual uncertainty, and sometimes finds himself in situations of total despair. The challenge in creating these characters served as a catalyst for developing and refining the Modern Hebrew consciousness literature, brimming with psychological insights. These ‘uprooted’ individuals, whose souls were split in two, formed the basis for the shaping of the modern Jewish identity. In this seminar we will examine some writers, those familiar and the lesser known, who experienced, first-hand, various forms of disengagement, abandonment and even forced removal from the traditional community and from tradition itself, among them Shlomo Maimon, M.L. Lilienblum, A.B. Gottlober, Y.L. Gordon, H.N. Bialik, M.J. Berdyczewski, M.Z. Feierberg, Y.H. Brenner, and S.Y. Agnon.
The seminar will follow the experience of disengagement from the old Jewish tradition and from the world of religious observance, as expressed in a variety of sources of the Jews of Eastern Europe from the late 18th century onward. This experience left its mark on Modern Hebrew literature, and in fact shaped the contours of the modern history of the Jews, which was a constant struggle between traditionalists and reformers over the future picture of the Jewish people and of the authoritative sources of its identity. Based on various sources from memoir literature, autobiography, prose and poetry, we will attempt to analyze the historical roots of modern Jewish secularism, while identifying its complex stages and patterns. The most known literary embodiment of this process is the ‘uprooted’, the one who left the confines of tradition, but did not assimilate into the secular world opposing it, and remained suspended between the two. This hero is usually absorbed in intensive self-reflection, immersed in a state of wandering, and of social and intellectual uncertainty, and sometimes finds himself in situations of total despair. The challenge in creating these characters served as a catalyst for developing and refining the Modern Hebrew consciousness literature, brimming with psychological insights. These ‘uprooted’ individuals, whose souls were split in two, formed the basis for the shaping of the modern Jewish identity. In this seminar we will examine some writers, those familiar and the lesser known, who experienced, first-hand, various forms of disengagement, abandonment and even forced removal from the traditional community and from tradition itself, among them Shlomo Maimon, M.L. Lilienblum, A.B. Gottlober, Y.L. Gordon, H.N. Bialik, M.J. Berdyczewski, M.Z. Feierberg, Y.H. Brenner, and S.Y. Agnon.