History 479/Fall 1999

H. Lupovitch

This course will explore the impact of urban life on Jewish society and culture by comparing the experience of Jews in three of the most cosmopolitan and culturally vibrant cities in the modern world: New York, Vienna, and Budapest. The course will cover a broad range of topics, including neighborhoods, immigration, crime, education, and the role of Jews in urban culture, and will explore the impact of urban life on Jewish identity and religious institutions, women, and the Jewish family.

9/8 Introduction

9/15 Urban History: Method and Historiography
Reading: Schorske and Bender, Budapest and New York, "Introduction"
H. James Dyos, "The Quality of Urban Life" in Issues in Urban History

9/22 Vienna: the City of the Habsburgs
Reading: Steven Beller, Vienna and the Jews: a Cultural History

9/29 Budapest: The Pearl of the Danube
Reading: John Lukacs, Budapest 1900

10/6 New York: the Melting Pot
Reading: Arthur Goren, The Kehilla Experiment

10/13 The Immigrant Experience: Greenhorns and Natives
Reading: Henry Roth, Call it Sleep

10/20 Jews and the Culture of the fin de siècle
Reading: Arthur Schnitzler, The Road into the Open

10/27 Jewish Neighborhoods: Assimilation and Identity in an Urban Context
Reading: Marsha Rozenblit, The Jews of Vienna
Jeffrey Gurock, When Harlem was Jewish

11/3 Alienation and the Critique of Modern Jewish Identity
Reading: Sigmund Freud, Moses and Monotheism

11/10 Jews in Times of Hardship
Reading: Beth Wenger, New York Jews and the Great Depression

11/17 Anti-Semitism and Paradoxes of Urban Jewish Identity
Reading: Theodore Herzl, Diaries
Arnold Schoenberg, Letters to Kandinsky

12/1 Presentations

12/8 Conclusion