The Culture of the Synagogue

Catalog description

Taught by GTU. Synagogue rituals are both structured communal performances dictated by religious authority, and arenas for the public display of variegated social issues, such as power relations, aesthetic sensibilities, and attitudes towards the "other," often well outside the synagogue and the Jewish communal sphere. This seminar offers a multidisciplinary approach to the many dimensions of synagogue life, focusing on Jewish liturgy as the interaction of verbal texts, sounds, objects, architectural spaces, and body language. Throughout the semester, we will analyze select primary sources and create a platform that combines literature and linguistics, musicology and ethnomusicology, the study of visual and material cultures, anthropology and the investigation of everyday life as a means to understand the complex cultural politics of Jewish ritual in the global diaspora.