Seminar- Sephardic Transcultural History: Between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
SEPHARDIC TRANSCULTURAL HISTORY:
BETWEEN JUDAISM, CHRISTIANITY, AND ISLAM
Dr. Martín Wein
Fall Semester 2017
martinjwein@yahoo.com
Office Hours: Tuesdays 3-4pm
Sephardic (lit. Spanish) or Mizrahi (lit. eastern) Jews are today often bundled into one group and reduced to a quintessential “non-Ashkenazi” subaltern at the fringe of Jewish societies. Yet, the historical, cultural and religious heritage of this inner-Jewish “other” is far older, broader and more varied than that of today’s Ashkenazi majority. This course traces a plethora of Sephardic/Mizrahi identities around the Mediterranean, in Asia, and on the Atlantic rim, from 1492 until today. Mediating between Christianity and Islam, and sometimes actually merging into those two dominant religions, early modern Sephardic/Mizrahi Jews often developed highly syncretic cultures, with a variety of religious “mixed forms,” from crypto-Jews, to conversos, Sabbateans and the Ottoman dönmeh sect. Echoes of this extraordinarily complex transculturalism continue in the peculiar Sephardic/Mizrahi position on the seam lines between Ashkenazim and Arabs in Israel.
1. The first part of this course will analyze the emergence of a Sephardi/Mizrahi sub- or counter-culture in Israel (e.g. “black panthers,” “Mediterraneanism,” Hebrew-Arabic linguistic syncretism), with its roots in the recruitment into colonial projects (e.g. Alliance Israélite Universelle), the role of Sephardi/Mizrahi Jews in Zionism and in the early waves of modern immigration to the Holy Land, the rise of Muslim anti-Semitism (e.g. the Farhud in Iraq), the Holocaust in places such as Greece and North Africa, but also the rescue of Bulgaria’s Jews, and the emigration or expulsion of Jews from most Arab states in the mid-twentieth century.
2. The second part will look at theoretical texts on Jewish and general religious/cultural syncretism.
3. The third part covers the “Sephardification” of preceding Jewish communities and the creation of the “Portuguese nation.” We will discuss the Christian-Jewish Sephardi Diaspora, spanning from Amsterdam to New York, from Curaçao to Venice -- and the Muslim-Jewish Diaspora, reaching from the Berber/Amazigh Jews of Morocco to the Ottoman Empire, and from India to Egypt, with its ancient roots in the Middle East, starting with the Babylonian Exile, via the ancient Jewish Himyar Kingdom in Yemen, to the emergence of the famous medieval Jewish center in Iberia, Al-Andalus.
4. The last part will focus specifically on the rise and fall of the Jewish communities in the various Christian and Muslim states of medieval Iberia, and on the expulsion of 1492. We will conclude the course with a discussion of issues related to religious identities, conflicts and tolerance.
This course is interdisciplinary, and in addition to scholarly texts we may use also a wide array of other media such as music, film, cultural and religious objects, the Internet, items from everyday life, oral history interviews, photographs, or poetry. We will discuss key transcultural aspects such as book smuggling, dress codes and disguise, interreligious relations and rituals, Jewish-defined languages, ports and maritime trade, Jews and world exploration, complex inter-religious power structures, as well as a few outstanding Sephardic or Mizrahi historical personalities.
Course Policy
Please keep phones turned-off while in class, and turn off all electronic apparatuses.
Course Requirements (also see final paper FAQs sheet at the end of this syllabus)
Midterm assignment: 15-20 min. reading presentation and leading discussion in class, one-page handout for students, graded pass/fail 10%
Final: academic essay on a topic of your choice, 18-25 pages (seminar) or 8-13 pages (referat), 70%
Attendance and Participation: 20% (you may miss two sessions at your own discretion, except when you present your reading)
Class Times:
Tuesdays 12:45-2:00 pm; Thursdays 12:00-1:45 pm; optional Jaffa tour TBA
PART I: Sephardic/Mizrahi Identities in Israel
TUE Oct 24: Introduction - What is Sephardic/Mizrahi?
THU Oct 26: Movie Screening and Discussion - Kazablan (Israel, Menachem Golan, 1974)
TUE Oct 31: Movie Screening and Discussion - Kazablan
Readings: Shaviv, Miriam, “Mixed Marriage”; Mishani, Dror, “Mizrahi Body”
THU Nov 2: Guest Lecturer Prof. Galia Hatav, University of Gainesville, Florida, USA
Open Discussion
TUE Nov 7: Syncretism in Israeli Mizrahi Music
Readings: Swedenburg, Ted, “Dana International”
THU Nov 9: Mizrahi Jews, the Farhud and the Holocaust
Readings:http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/nazioccupation/bulgarianjews.html; https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/how-bulgaria-saved-its-jews-from-nazi-concentration-camps/2013/05/08/e866bdda-8cb1-11e2-9838-d62f083ba93f_story.html?utm_term=.d499f02b1960; http://forward.com/news/178189/controversy-erupts-over-effort-to-honor-bulgarian/
TUE Nov 14: Jaffa as a Mizrahi Location
Readings: Athanasiadis, Iason, “Levantine Port Cities”
PART II: Theories of Syncretism
THU Nov 16: Jewish Arabs or Arab Jews in Israel - The Invention of the Mizrahim
Readings: Shohat, Ella, “Invention of the Mizrahim”
TUE Nov 21: The Mizrahi Psychology
Readings: Cohen, Shuki, “Arab Jews”
THU Nov 23: Guest Lecturer Paul Liptz, Tel Aviv University
"Jews in the Middle East in the 20th Century: Three Case Studies - Yemen, Iraq and Morocco"
TUE Nov 28: Authenticity and Authority in Jewish Contexts
Readings: Charme, Stuart Z., “Authenticity”
THU Nov 30: Dialectics of Assimilation
Readings: Funkenstein, Amos, “Dialectics”
TUE Dec 5/ THU Dec 7: No class
PART III: Mizrahi/Sephardic Diaspora History
TUE Dec 12: Making of a Modern Jewish People
Readings: Israel, Jonathan I., “Mercantilism”
THU Dec 14: Maritime Jews: From Cochin to Curacao
Readings: Sorkin, David “Port Jew”
TUE Dec 19: Case Study: Venice
Readings: Calimani, Ricardo “Ghetto”; Ravid, Benjamin “Venetian Ghetto”
THU Dec 21: Case Study: Amsterdam
Readings: Kaplan, Yosef, “Bom Judesmo”
PART IV: Iberian History
TUE Dec 26: The 1492 Expulsion and the Sephardic Role in World Exploration
Readings: Fernandez-Armesto, Felipe, “Before Columbus”
THU Dec 28: The Conquest of Granada, the “Catholic Nation” and the Inquisition
Readings: Roth, Norman, “Inquisition”
TUE Jan 2: The Reconquista: Marranos, Conversos and Sephardic Messianism
Readings: Roth, Norman, “Marranos and Conversos”
THU Jan 4: Concluding Discussion: Religious Identity, Tolerance and Conflicts
Readings: Diaz-Mas, Paloma, “Historical Background”
Final Paper FAQs
What should I write?
Choose your own topic
How much should I write?
for number of pages see requirements, double spaced, 12 size font, not including pictures, empty spaces, or bibliography!
How about footnotes?
You should have an average of 3 or more footnotes (or endnotes/short notes) per page. You can use any standard formatting style you like (MLA, Chicago etc.), just be consistent. If you use short notes (e.g. Israel 1985:12) you must add a full and formatted bibliography at the end.
How many sources should I cite/quote?
At least 5 different academic sources, including at least 2 used in this course.
When is the deadline and how do I hand in the paper?
For deadline see syllabus, send as a PDF file by e-mail to martinjwein@yahoo.com
Where do I find sources?
1. Class readings (all scanned on my webpage, further most books are in the Educational Library, check the indexes for passages on your topic throughout the books, and book bibliographies for further readings)
2. TAU libraries, talk to a librarian!!! (Check online catalogue by key words, there are catalogues for books, journals and online journals: http://aleph3.libnet.ac.il/~libnet/malmad.htm
Also check RAMBI, an index of articles on Jewish- and Israeli-related topics: http://jnul.huji.ac.il/rambi/) When in the stacks browse for similar books nearby
3. Online (e.g. haaretz.com newspaper web archive in English for small payment; academic websites, official web pages of buildings or institutions etc.)
Please note:
to plagiarize (third-person singular simple present plagiarizes, present participle plagiarizing, simple past and past participle plagiarized) (transitive or intransitive) To use, and pass off as one's own, someone else's writing/speech.
Good luck!!!
