Colgate University

First-Year Course Offerings — Fall 2019

RELG 283   Experiencing Judaism
Credits1
Restrictions
Pre-Requisites
Co-Requisites
Core Area
Area of InquiryHuman Thought and Expression
Liberal Arts Practices

As a minority culture, throughout history, Jews and Judaism have always been subject to the influence of the majority cultures in which Jews have found themselves. In response to the shocks of modernity, ruptures, scientific advancements, and philosophical ideas and challenges, Jewish thinkers, culture, and individuals formulated responses—religious and otherwise. In Experiencing Judaism, students will explore how Judaism has responded to modernity, the “age of secularism.” To wit, students will focus on distinctively modern expressions of Judaism: the range of denominations, their historical origins, ideologies, and attitudes to Jewish law and its development, secularism, religious and secular Zionism. Students will explore these developments through primary texts within their historical contexts to better understand contemporary Judaism as it is expressed and practiced, mainly in North America and Israel, as a religion and also as a culture.