; The Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
Rothberg International School, Division of Graduate Studies
Autumn 2024/2025
01514
Dr. Roni Weinstein
Course Syllabus
1. The Jewish traditions in late antiquity, from the destruction of the second temple to the Gaonic period.
2. The beginnings of the new centers in the west: Foundation legends of the new centres in Spain, France, Italy and Germany, and their historical meaning.
3. Between Christianity and Judaism – a discourse of religions: The theological position; the Ecumenical councils; the Papal bulls; Fourth council of the Lateran (1215).
4. The growth of the local Jewish community: The foundational concepts of the community; its linkage to the city and communal corporations; the institutes of the local community; regional synods and ordinances.
5. Jewish culture in mediaeval Europe: The “golden age” in Muslim Spain; The pious (Hassidim) of Ashkenaz; the Tosafists; the controversy over philosophy; the origins of Kabbalah; between foreign and Jewish culture – forms of incorporation and rejection.
6. Transformations in the Jewish-Christian polemic in the High Middle-Ages: The debate over the Talmud; the Paris debate; the Barcelona debate.
7. Violence against Jews: The Crusades, the blood libel and its development; the host desecration accusation (1290); the Jew and the Devil; the Jew in Christian art; “Ecclesia and Synagoga”; the stereotype in literature; expulsions of Jews from western Europe.
8. Main centers of Jewish life during the Middle Ages: Spain, Ashkenaz, Italy, North Africa.
9. Family life, popular religion, gender.
10. Jews in Early Modern Europe, especially during the Counter-Reformation period (Spain, and Italy): Burning of the Talmud, establishment of Ghettos, the Impact of Catholic Inquisition.
11. The rise of Safed as a center of Jewish Kabbalah and its major impact on Jewish religiosity.
12. Changes in Jewish educational patterns, the impact of 'Print Revolution'.
13. Modern Jewish Law, the codification project by R. Joseph Karo and his Shulchan ʽAruch
14. Feminine religiosity.
15. Jewish messianism, the messianic movement of Sabbetai Zvi
Gershon D. Cohen, “The Story of the Four Captives”, Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, 29 (1961), pp. 55-131. Ejournal
Jeremy Cohen, Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity, Berkeley 1999. Ebook
Robert Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade, Berkeley 1987, pp. 15-45. Overseas library ý933.3 C513; Ebook
Shlomo Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century, I, Philadelphia 1933, pp. 9-83. Overseas library 296.26 G784; Ereserve
Avraham Grossman, Pious and Rebellious: Jewish Women in Medieval Europe, Waltham Mass., Brandeis University Press, 2004. Overseas library 933.3 G877; Ebook
David B. Ruderman, Early Modern Jewry:ý A New Cultural History, Princeton:ý Princeton U.P., 2010. Overseas library 933.4 R915; Ebook
Roni Weinstein, Kabbalah and Jewish Modernity, Oxford Portland, Oregon: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2016. Overseas library 296.65 W424; Ebook
Yaron Ben-Naeh, Jews in the Realm of the Sultans:ý Ottoman Jewish Society in the Seventeenth century, Tübingen:ý Mohr Siebeck,ý 2008. Overseas library 933.5(561) B456
Elisheva Carlebach, Divided Souls:ý The Convert Critique and the Culture of Ashkenaz, 1750-1800, New York:ý Leo Baeck Institute,ý 2003. Online access
Elisheva Carlebach, The Pursuit of Heresy:ý Rabbi Moses Hagiz and the Sabbatian Controversies, New York:ý Columbia U.P., 1990. Main library BM 527.1 H33 C37