HU Credits: 2

Degree/Cycle: 1st degree (Bachelor)

Responsible Department: History of Jewish People & Contemporary Jewry

Semester: 1st Semester

Teaching Languages: Hebrew

Campus: Ein Karem

Course/Module Coordinator: Dr. Dmitry Shumsky

Coordinator Email: dimitry.shumsky@mail.huji.ac.il

Coordinator Office Hours: by appointment

Teaching Staff:
Prof Dimitry Shumsky

Course/Module description:
The course will trace the socio-cultural and political roots, contents and goals of Theodore Herzl's Zionism. A particular emphasis will be placed on the dialectics of assimilation and Jewish collective self-assertion, which was essentially inherent to earlier political Zionism. Likewise, we will address national perceptions and socio-cultural profile of Herzl's followers.

Course/Module aims:

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
critically analyze the ideologically biased "Assimilation / Nationalism" dichotomy in the history of modern Zionism in general, and in the case of Herzl's political Zionism in particular; master new scholarship on the founder of modern Zionism; conduct comparative studies of Herzl's Zionism vis-a-vis case studies of non-dominant nationalities national movements in the Habsburg Central Europe; assess contribution of fiction as a historical source

Attendance requirements(%):

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction:

Course/Module Content:
Assimilation and Nationalism: definitions and concepts; Habsburg monarchy, nationalities conflicts and Central European Jews; Herzl: biographical background, German-Jewish identity context; "the New Ghetto"; "Der Judenstaat"; "Altneuland"

Required Reading:
John, Michael. " 'We Do Not Even Possess Our Selves': On Identity and Ethnicity in Austria, 1880-1937". Austrian History Yearbook 30 (1999): 17-64

Wistrich, Robert S. "The Jews and Nationality Conflicts in the Habsburg Lands". Nationalities Papers 22 (1, 1994): 119-139

Robertson, Ritchie. "'The New Ghetto' and the Perplexities of Assimilation", in Theodor Herzl, Visionary of the Jewish State, ed. G. Shimoni and R. S. Wistrich (Jerusalem 1999), pp. 39-51

Kornberg, Jacques. Theodor Herzl: From Assimilation to Zionism. Bloomington & Indianapolis, 1993.

שוורץ, יגאל. הידעת את הארץ שם הלימון פורח. אור יהודה תשס"ז

הרצל, תאודור. הגטו החדש. תל אביב, 1992

הרצל, בנימין זאב. מדינת היהודים: ניסיון לפתרון מודרני של שאלת היהודים (ירושלים: הספרייה הציונית, תשל"ג)

הרצל, תיאודור. אלטנוילנד (תל-אביב: בבל, תשס"ד)

פונקנשטיין, עמוס, "דיאלקטיקת ההתבוללות". זמנים 55 (1996): 64- 71

Additional Reading Material:

Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 0 %
Presentation 0 %
Participation in Tutorials 0 %
Project work 100 %
Assignments 0 %
Reports 0 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 0 %

Additional information:
The end of term assignment will be in the form of selected questions based on the required reading material, to be posted on the course site (Moodle) and explained in detail in class.