Syllabus
Learning Objectives:
· Students will be able to understand the broad parameters of modern Jewish history and the key debates in Jewish historiography
· Students will know how to critically assess online historical resources and their potential and limitations for historical research.
· Students will learn how to apply the VHA (Video History Analysis) and the VCA (Video Content Analysis) on specific cases.
· They will learn to use the virtual online platforms (IWalk and IWitness) developed by the USC Shoah Foundation
· They get acquainted with characteristics of Jewish communities from diverse background.
· They will develop critical and analytical thinking skills using various forms of documents.
· They will determine the importance of place on identity.
· They will develop empathy and respect for differences and the immigrant experience.
· They will learn the meaning of Yiddish words with the aid of the online Yiddish glossary (ex. Minyan, Shul)
Annotation
Teacher: Mgr. Jakub Bronec
PhD Student at the University of Luxembourg and Charles University in Prague
C: jakub.bronec@uni.lu
W: https://www.c2dh.uni.lu/people/jakub-bronec
This course serves as an introduction to the major themes in modern Jewish history, with an emphasis on Europe in the 19th-20th century. It starts with an overview of the main trends in Jewish historiography to understand how previous generations of scholars and historians have understood, conceptualised and interpreted modern Jewish history. Following this exploration, the course will follow a more or less chronological path, beginning with the so-called Haskala (Jewish Enlightenment) and the process of legal emancipation that began in the late 18th century. We then move on to the era of Jewish mass migration from Europe in the second half of the 19th century, the rise of modern anti-Semitism as well the development of new forms of Jewish political practices and movements (from socialism to Zionism) which, in turn, greatly informed Jewish responses to persecution, anti-Semitism and crisis. Our focus in the 20th century will be on the interwar period and World War II & the Holocaust, as well as postwar Jewish reconstruction and life, and the emergence of the State of Israel. We will finish with looking more closely at the history of the Jews in Czechoslovakia.
A key aim of the course is to promote an understanding of modern Jewish history that, far from being monolithic, emphasizes its rich cultural, linguistic, religious and political diversity as well as the various forms and degrees of Jewish agency as they developed in multiple spatio-temporal contexts.
• This is also a digital history course: students will work with a variety of online resources and learn to assess their potential (and limitations) for historical research on modern Jewish history.
• This is the second key aim of the course: to raise awareness of the possibilities of online resources for historical research in combination with the offline resources historians have always known: ‘traditional’ archives and libraries.
• As part of the course requirements, students will maintain a course blog together through which they will publish aspects of their research and reflections on the literature and use of digital resources.
• The course will introduce to the new methods of VHA (Video History Analysis) applied on the Jewish society in former Czechoslovakia.
• During the individual sessions, participants will use the intuitive video editing software on the online IWitness platform, which allow to edit and create their own video recordings. The course also provides an overview of using and editing historical photos, maps and personal documents as archival source.