69575 - Jewish Culture and Identity in the  Modern and Contemporary World

Learning outcomes

The course aims to provide students with adequate knowledge of the main characters of the Jewish culture of the last two centuries, through the study of the evolution of Jewish identity from the biblical period and from ancient times to the Middle Ages and the emancipation,  in order to reach the modern and contemporary age. At the end of the course the student will have acquired the ability to understand the political, religious and cultural situation that underlie the evolution of Jewish consciousness over the centuries and the challenge of modernity and the State of Israel, taking place today in the West and in the Middle East, based on knowledge of their historical roots and the documentation that accompanied them. The student will also acquire  the knowledge that will enable him to deal, with a scientific methodology, the complex reasons of the dialectical relationship between the following reality: Diaspora / promised land, Jewish identity  / Israeli Jewish faith, Judaism / State of Israel, secularism / fundamentalism and, and finally, Jewish-Israeli / Palestinian-Arab world and conflict. All these problems will be discussed in the context of the secularization taking place today in Israel and on the background of the "Spring of the Arab peoples".

Course contents

Brief history of the three thousand years Jewish history. Ideology, theology and history in the Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew Bible and Christian Bible. Judaism in the pre-exilic period, the Judaism of the Second Temple, Rabbinic Judaism, Orthodoxy, Reform and Conservative Judaism, the Inquisition and the Ghetto period; the birth of Zionism in the 19th century; Menorah and Star of David; Jewish consciousness and emancipation; emancipation, release from the ghettos and development of a new Jewish consciousness; the Jews and the Italian Risorgimento, the Italian Jews and Fascism; the racial laws of 1938; the Jewish Brigade in Italy and in Romagna in World War II; secularism, faith and the emigration to Israel of the first generations between the 19th and 20th centuries; political-military and diplomatic Zionism and religious Zionism; the Zionism of Martin Buber and Juda Magnes;  the Holocaust: the radical catastrophe and its consequences on Jews between atheism and orthodoxy; Holocaust and the League of Nations; the birth of the State of Israel;  the Vatican and Italian Catholic world in front of the newly formed State of Israel; the Vatican, the Catholic Church and the Italian left parties in front of the Arab-Israeli conflict: the change in recent years. The information of the Italian media on the State of Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict. The new framework of the " North African Spring"; peace movement in Israel; Israel and the U.S.A.; Islamic and Jewish fundamentalism and the State of Israel;  the ultra-orthodox and the State of Israel. The recent conflict with Iran. Latest developments of secularization in Israel, the decline of interest of the younger generation for the Israeli Jewish Studies.

 

 

Readings/Bibliography

For the exam, the student must arrange with the teacher some books selected from those listed below, in accordance with its interests.

 

Claudio Vercelli, Israele. Storia dello Stato. Dal sogno alla realtà (1881-2007), Giuntina, Firenze 2007.

Paolo Pieraccini, Gerusalemme, luoghi santi e comunità religiose nella politica internazionale, Edizioni Dehoniane Bologna, 1997.

Carlotta Ferrara degli Uberti, Fare gli ebrei italiani. Autorappresentazioni di una minoranza (1861-1918), Il Mulino, Bologna 2011.

Michele Sarfatti, Gli ebrei nell'Italia fascista. Vicende, identità, persecuzione, Einaudi, Torino 2000.

Sergio della Pergola, Israele e Palestina: la forza dei numeri. Il conflitto mediorientale fra demografia e politica, Il Mulino, Bologna 2007.

Martin Buber, Sentieri in utopia, Marietti, Genova-Milano 2009.

Furio Biagini, Giudaismo contro sionismo. Storia dei Neturei Karta e dell'opposizione ebraica al sionismo e allo Stato di Israele, L'ornitorinco Edizioni, Milano 2010.

Roberto Finzi, L'università italiana e le leggi antiebraiche, Editori Riuniti, Roma 1997.4Domenico Mirri e Stefano Arieti (a cura di), Dal giuramento di fedeltà al fascismo alle leggi razziali nell'Università di Bologna, Clueb, Bologna 2002.

Valerio De Cesaris, Pro Judeis. Il filogiudaismo cattolico in Italia (1789-1938), A. Guerini, Milano 2006.

Elena Mazzini, L'ntiebraismo cattolico dopo la Shoah. Tradizioni e culture nell'Italia del secondo dopoguerra (1945-1974). Viella, Roma 2012.

Assessment methods

 Oral test

Links to further information

http://www.unibo.it/SitoWebDocente/default.htm?upn=mauro.perani%40unibo.it&TabControl1=TabContatti

Office hours

See the website of Mauro Perani