HDS 1656- American Jews, Judaism, and the Challenges of Identity
Semester: Spring
Offered: 2024
Instructor: Shaul Magid
Meeting Time: W 1:00PM – 3:00PM
American Judaism is a distinctive form of the historical Jewish experience. Jews arrived in America emancipated and began a long process of acculturation, curating a new sense of “identity” in a place some called “the New Promised Land.” The Judaism cultivated here included adaptation to American Protestant religiosity and values, democracy, freedom of religion, social activism for other minorities, race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, as well as the encounter with new religious movements (e.g. Transcendentalism, Pragmatism, New Thought, New Age, etc.). In this course we will examine the theoretical underpinnings and challenges of Judaism in the United States, addressing questions of identity, continuity, and survival. This is not a history course but rather a course focused on identifying the structures, fissures, and complexities of an American religion in perpetual transition.
For more details please visit the Harvard Course Catalog.