| Credits | 1 |
| Restrictions | No 2028 2027 |
| Pre-Requisites | Students may not take more than 1 CORE Communities course |
| Co-Requisites | |
| Core Area | Communities |
| Area of Inquiry | |
| Liberal Arts Practices |
No linear story or trajectory marks the experience of Jews in America. Rather, American Jews have long remained divided—by race, class, religion, and political outlook. Students engage with varied texts—from history and sociology, to television and literature—to explore the evolving and contested nature of Jewish life in the United States. Readings revolve around issues pertaining to religious identification; Zionism and its discontents; Antisemitism and racism; race and intermarriage; the Holocaust as memory and metaphor; Israel on campus; and Jews, politics and lobbying groups. Be it by exploring how American Jews “wrestled with race” or how they have “wrestled with religion”, students probe the challenges and fissures that have always bedeviled American Jewish communities.