From Left to Right: Jews and Modern Politics

Catalog description

This course addresses the timely topic of Jewish involvement in various political movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries across the world, from Argentina to Tunisia. Though Jews are sometimes pigeon-holed in the media being either predominantly of a liberal bent or staunch right-wingers supportive of Israel, this course aims at showing the richness of Jewish political options, ranging from anarchism to socialism, as well as specific national movements which defy an easy categorization (such as Zionism, Kemalism and Peronism). Attention will be drawn to the social factors which influenced political considerations, be they class, religion, or ethnic tensions, as well as to the overall political context in which one's identity was shaped. Combining a focus on the history of ideas with a biographical approach to representative figures (such as Leon Trotsky, Emma Goldman, Alberto Memmi, and Susan Sontag), the course will appeal primarily to students interested in modern and contemporary Jewish history as well as to students seeking an introduction to political doctrines and ideologies.