In this course we will study selected sugyot from tractate Avoda-Zara in the two Talmudim. The course is structured in a special format: an introductory hour, followed by a guided study in small groups and then a concluding session. Its goal is double: methodological and thematic. In the first level we shall learn to compare Babylonian and Palestinian sugyot. In the second, thematic, level we will examine questions of universalism and particularism and of the attitude toward ethnic and religious Others in rabbinic literature.