JS/REL 226: Jewish-Christian Relations: From Enmity to Dialogue
Judaism and Christianity claim common roots, yet historically defined themselves often as adversaries. Throughout most of history, Christianity relegated Judaism to a status of tolerated minority. This course explores complicated Jewish-Christian interactions since the “parting of the ways”; to medieval persecutions of the Jews, to processes of modernization and emancipation, to recent attempts at dialogue spurred by the tragedy of the Holocaust. While not free from controversies, these attempts do often result in interfaith reconciliation.
HEBR 101: Elementary Hebrew 1
This course introduce students to the fundamentals of spoken and written modern Hebrew. Students will develop listening and speaking skills as well as facility in reading and writing standard, unvowelled texts.
REL 201: Biblical Imagination
This course offers an introduction to the religion of ancient Israel and an examination of biblical perspectives on the great questions through close-reading of selected texts. Using methods of scholarly inquiry, students will explore interpretations of the biblical texts as ”scripture” in both Jewish and Christian communities.
GOVERNMENT 230: Middle East Politics
The course examines topics such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, the struggle for domination in the Arab World, the role of the superpowers in the region, and the politics of oil. An analysis of international political processes in some of the Middle Eastern countries is used to examine explanations for the foreign policies of these countries. The course assesses different solutions to problems confronted by the nations of the Middle East.
Other Courses Offered by the Jewish Studies Program