HS/RL 312 - Coexistence and Conflict: The History of Eastern and Central European Jews

The course is intended to discuss the most important turning points in the history of the East and Central European Jews from the early modern times to the present. The topics include the birth of the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe, the Jewish struggle for emancipation in the various East European societies in the 19th century, the peculiarities of Jewish life in the Habsburg Empire (especially during the 1867-1918 period) and in Czarist Russia, the rise of anti-Semitism and Zionism, the interwar period and the authoritarian and totalitarian regimes in East and Central Europe, the Holocaust (including recent debates), the Jews in the Communist societies and in post-Communist Eastern and Central Europe.