Dr. Jonathan Goldstein

History of Modern Israel –History  4485-25H

Spring Semester 2005

MW 2-3:15 PM

Pafford 206

 

 

[1]  LEARNING OUTCOMES

The State of Israel is the largest Jewish community ever created in history.  By the end of this course you should become familiar with the history of modern Israel, including the legacy of the Holocaust, the ideologies of its founders, its geography, politics, economy, sociology, language, prose, poetry, art, architecture and cinema.  The course will also cover Israel’s minority communities of Muslim and Christian Palestinian Arabs,  Armenians, Druze, Ba’hai, and Circassians.  Finally, the course will survey Israel’s relations and non-relations with its neighbors, its place within a broader international context, and the prospects for Israeli society in the twenty first century.   This is not a course emphasizing the Arab-Israeli conflict.

 

[2]  ASSESSMENT PROCEDURES AND GRADING POLICIES   There will be a research project, quizzes, and mid-term and final examinations.  These exams will cover lecture material plus assigned readings.  The exact scope and form of the exams will be announced at the appropriate time.  Readings are due on the specific dates for which they are assigned.  Unannounced quizzes based on an assignment are possible on the day they are due.  The final exam will be given in the classroom and at the time specified in the spring semester bulletin in the classroom. 

 

Each student must do a research project, details to be provided.  Grades will be determined as follows:

 

Midterm                                                                               25 percent

Research project:  Due before class Wed. April 20             25 percent                                                                 

Final exam:  Wed, May 4, 2-4 PM in the classroom           25 percent

Reading quizzes, take home geography quiz,

and other miscellaneous assignments averaged                

together                                                                                25 percent

 

Attendance at all announced examinations is required.  Except under very exceptional circumstances, make-up examinations will not be allowed unless the professor has excused the student before the regular exam time for legitimate reasons.  Consistent with University policies, graduating seniors can exempt out of the final exam if they wish.  In that case, the final grade will consist of midterm 33 1/3%, research project 33 1/3%, and the average of quizzes and other miscellaneous assignments 33 1/3%.  Please notify the professor no later than May 2 if you are a graduating senior who wishes to exempt out of the final.

 

There are no pre-requisites for this course, although a general acquaintance with Biblical history and with the Hebrew and/or Christian Bibles [“Old” and/or “New” Testaments] may be helpful.   

 

[3] COURSE ADMINISTRATION

 

Office hours:  Office hours will be held in TELC Room 3207 on Mondays and  Wednesdays from 3:20 to 5 PM; on  Tuesdays from 8 to 9:40 PM; and by appointment.  Students who have questions or concerns about their performance in class or on tests or who would like simply to confer should take it upon themselves to see the professor.  If you have any problems or questions please do not hesitate to come by TELC Room 3207 or telephone at 678-839-6034 or 678-839-6508 (leave message). 

 

Methods of Instruction:  The course will be taught through lecture, discussion, and a possible outside speakers and film.  I encourage you to ask questions and raise issues.  We have flexibility in our schedule and can take time to discuss issues you may raise. 

 

[4] TEXTS AND REQUIRED MATERIALS

 

The texts required for this course are: 

S. Ilan Troen, IMAGINING ZION. [New Haven, 2003].

Arthur Herzberg, THE ZIONIST IDEA, 2d ed  [Philadelphia, 1997].

 

There also will be a number of xeroxed handouts distributed during the course for which you will be responsible.

 

[5] ATTENDANCE POLICY

 

Attendance will be taken. It is most important that everyone try to attend each class session.  Anything above three absences in this seventeen week class will be considered grounds for dismissal.  Leaving class early constitutes an absence, and two latenesses are the equivalent of one absence.  It should be made very clear that (a) students are responsible for all material presented in class; (b) examinations will be based substantially on this materials; and (c) a positive attitude shown by an absence of cuts and lateness can work to raise a student’s letter grade in borderline grading situations.

 

[6] CELL PHONE ETIQUETTE AND OTHER COURTESIES 

Out of courtesy to those students trying hard to concentrate, please refrain from smoking, drinking, eating, nail polishing, and chewing gum during class.  Please do not bring children to class.  PLEASE DO NOT BRING CELL PHONES, AUDIBLE PAGERS, OR ALARM WATCHES TO CLASS.  It is not sufficient to say “Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot to turn off.”  The student in front of you, behind you, or next to you may be on probation and must do well in this course. It is therefore essential that we have a positive learning environment in the classroom.

 

[7] ASSIGNMENT SCHEDULE.  A detailed assignment schedule will be passed out at the beginning of the semester, including the dates on which specific pages of the basic texts and handouts should be read.  Other general readings which may be helpful to you include:

 

Shlomo Dov Goitein, JEWS AND ARABS:  THEIR CONTACTS THROUGH THE AGES.

“Mandate for Palestine” and “Israeli Declaration of Independence” in Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin, THE ISRAELI-ARAB READER [New York, 2001].

“Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and “Balfour Declaration” in Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, THE JEW IN THE MODERN WORLD [Oxford, 1995].

Jehuda Reinharz and Itamar Rabinovitch, ed. ISRAEL IN THE MIDDLE EAST [Hanover, NH, forthcoming].

Palestinian Liberation Organization charter.

Aviezer Ravitsky, MESSIANISM, ZIONISM, AND RELIGIOUS RADICALISM [Chicago, 1996], on varieties of religious Zionism and anti-Zionism.

Gershon Shafi, “Zionism and colonialism: a comparative approach,” in Ilan Pappe, ed. THE ISRAEL/PALESTINE QUESTION: REWRITING HISTORIES [London, 1999], pp. 81-96.

Aaronsohn, Ran.  “Settlement in Eretz Israel, A Colonialist Enterprise?: Critical Scholarship and Historical Geography.”  ISRAEL STUDIES 1:2 [Fall 1996].

Shimon Peres, TOWARD A NEW MIDDLE EAST [1993].

Benjamin Netanyahu, PLACE AMONG THE NATIONS [1993].

 

Other references:

Hammond, ATLAS OF THE MIDDLE EAST.

ISRAEL AFFAIRS [London].

ISRAEL STUDIES website: www.aisisraelstudies.org;  see also index to journal ISRAEL STUDIES, 1996-2004.

ENCYCLOPEDIA JUDAICA [Jerusalem, 1972].  In reference section of Ingram Library. 

 

[8]  Reading assignments through March 30:

Jan, 10, 12:  intro to course; geography, geology, hydrology

Jan. 17; no class, Martin Luther King holiday

Jan. 19: take-home geography quiz due before class; Who were the European Jews, esp. Jews of Germany, Poland, and Lithuania?

Jan. 24; Read Herzberg, pp. 103-39:  Zionist forerunners:  Alkalai, Kalischer, Moses Hess;

Jan. 26:  Events of 1870s-80s; Read Herzberg, pp. 145-198;  Mendele Mokher Sforim, “Shem and Japeth on the Train.”:  Smolenskin, Ben Yehuda, Lilienblum, Pinsker

Jan. 31:  Review Jan. 26 readings;  also read Troen, p. 3-13, on early settlements

Feb. 2:  Read Herzberg   pp. 201-245:  Herzl and Nordau

Feb. 7;  Review Feb. 2 readings.

Feb. 9:  Read Troen, pp. 15-41: early settlements

Feb. 14:  Read Herzberg, pp. 248-327:  Ahad Ha-am, Bialik, Berdichcevski, Brenner, Klatzkin

Feb. 16:  Read Herzberg, pp. 330-396:  Zionism of Marxist and Utopian Socialists:  Syrkin, Borochov, Gordon, Katznelson

Feb. 21:  Read Herzberg, pp. 398-466, 515-23:  Religious nationalists: Mohilever, Pines, Kook, Landau, Magnes, Buber; Louis Brandeis and American Zionism

Feb. 23;  review Feb. 21 reading

Feb. 28:  Read Troen, pp. 42-81:  Arab-Jewish accomodation;  military dimensions.

Mar. 2;  Read Troen:  85-111; Urban life/Tel Aviv as “Vienna on the Mediterranean.”

Mar. 7:  Read Troen, 112-140:  other urban alternatives;

March 9:  Read Herzberg, pp. 547-619:  Zionist ideologists in action: Bar-Ilan [Berlin],  Jabotinsky, Weizmann, Silver, Ben-Gurion

March 14:  review March 9 readings

March 17:  midterm exam

March 21-25:  SPRING BREAK—NO CLASS

March 28;  Read Troen, pp. 141-59: Imagined communities

March 30;  NO CLASS—HONORS DAY

FINAL EXAM AT THE TIME SPECIFIED IN THE SPRING SEMESTER BULLETIN:  Wednesday, May 4, from 2 to 4 PM in the classroom.