This is an interdisciplinary seminar, which will deal with the memory of the Destruction of the First and Second Temples, from literary and textual; political; and theological perspectives, from the Destruction of the First Temple up to the present day. The main task of the seminar will be looking at the historical picture of the two Destructions and the connection between them, and discussing the significance of the creation of the historical memory from different perspectives: its aims, the messages it conveys and the uses that have been made of it. The picture that will be presented is that of the generations after the Destruction of the Second Temple, for whom the Temple stood at the centre of a long and continuous time period. During this period the Temple was destroyed twice, and the Second Destruction was seen simply as reflection of the First.

The first semester will be devoted to looking at the sources for the Destruction, and reconstructing the historical picture of the events, as a basis for the historical understanding of the two Destructions. Emphasis will be laid on the different ways the construction of memory was carried out after the two Destructions: in the Bible after the First Destruction, and in Josephus and the Talmudic Literature after the Destruction of the Second Temple.

The second part of the seminar will take place in the second semester, as the School of Jewish Studies In-School Seminar. This part of the seminar will deal with the construction of memory of the two Destructions from antiquity to the present day.  A number of guest scholars will present their perspectives based on their own specific area of interest as a basis for discussion with the teachers and students of the seminar.

In this part of the seminar the subjects to be presented will include: early Christian exegesis of the Jewish Destructions; the contribution of the Crusades; the Expulsion from Spain; Messianic trends: Shabbetai Zvi and Jacob Frank and their followers; past Destructions as part of the responses to the Holocaust; Zionism and the State of Israel.

One session will be devoted to sociological and anthropological analysis of responses to national traumas.