Modern Jewish Histories between Exile an

This seminar examines modern Jewish history from 1492 to the present. Rather than presenting this history as a linear movement from tradition to secularization or nationalism, the course asks how Jewish communities in different regions responded to crisis, displacement, imperial rule, emancipation, colonialism and secularization by reinterpreting the meanings of exile and redemption. Beginning with the Sephardi rupture of 1492, the course follows a series of historical moments in which Jews debated whether exile should be endured, overcome, politicized, or reimagined.

The seminar follows the ways Jews in different regions participated in and reshaped major historical current of the modern period, including emancipation, religious reform, messianic movements, colonial education, socialist politics, the Arab Nahda and nationalism. The course deliberately shifts the center of gravity of modern Jewish history: rather than treating Ashkenazi and Western European experiences as the implicit norm, it places Sephardi, Ottoman, North African, and Middle Eastern Jewish worlds at the center of the inquiry. Ashkenazi and European developments remain important, but they are studied as part of a broader constellation of modern Jewish histories rather than as the default model.

By the end of the semester, students will have gained a broad understanding of modern Jewish history as a set of interconnected and regionally diverse developments. They will learn to read this history through ruptures and unrealized possibilities, without reducing it to a linear or teleological narrative. They will be able to identify major transformations in Jewish life from 1492 to the present, explain how Jewish communities navigated changing political and social conditions, and compare developments across Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Ottoman, and North African Jewish contexts. Students will also strengthen their ability to read and contextualize diverse primary sources — mystical writings, liturgical texts, philosophical works, political manifestos, letters, songs, memoirs, and activist writings — while situating them within broader debates in modern Jewish history.