Judaic Studies*

338 MFAC
North Campus
Buffalo, NY 14261-0011
(716) 645-2154, ext. 108
Fax: (716) 645-2225

Samuel M. Paley, Director

*This area of study is available as a special major through the College of Arts and Sciences. It is not a separately registered degree program. Refer to the Special Majors section of this catalog for more information. A minor is also available.

The Program

Judaic Studies provides undergraduate students with a comprehensive view of the development of Jewish life since its beginning 3300 years ago. The courses explore the history, culture, and accomplishments of world Jewry in particular, while seeking in general to discover how a religion can still survive for more than three millennia. Because the experience of the Jews has spanned many cultures, a student must develop interdisciplinary tools for the analysis of Jewish lifestyles, both ancient and modern, while pursuing this major.

The interdisciplinary nature of Judaic Studies, and the fact that it is currently available as a special major, means that creative, motivated students can develop an individualized course of study to suit their own needs and interests. A special major in Judaic Studies must be approved by the Special Major Committee.

A minimum of twelve courses is required to fulfill this major, half of which must be in one of the subject areas. A minor in Judaic Studies is also available. A minimum of seven courses is required to fulfill the minor, including one full year of modern Hebrew.

Judaic Studies (JDS)

201 Israel and the Ancient Near East (3)
People of the Bible; the environment in which they lived; what they absorbed and rejected from Mesopotamia, Syria, Anatolia, Iran, Egypt. LEC

202 Israel and the Emergence of Judaism (3)
Post-biblical Jews and Judaism; their adaptation to Greco-Roman life; rise of Jewish sectarianism; writing of the Talmud. LEC

205 Historical Geography and Archaeology of Israel (5)
Methods and results of excavation in Israel; development of material culture (pottery, architecture, etc.) and its interpretation. LEC

214 The American Jewish Woman (3)
Relationships and conflicts that shaped the identity of the American Jewish woman: Jewish women and the American Women's Rights movement; immigrant Jewish women and labor activism; impact of feminism on Judaism. LEC

229 The Jew in Medieval Times (3)
Poets, philosophers, mathematicians, bankers, traders: how they and their families lived within and outside the ghettos of the Middle East and Europe. LEC

230 Modern Jewish History (3)
Jewish experience from 1770 to the present day; ethnic origins and backgrounds of contemporary Jewry in the United States, Canada, and Israel. LEC

235 The American Jewish Experience (3)
American Jewish life from colonial beginnings to the present: immigration; assimilation; social mobility; education and the family; group identity. LEC

237 History of Israel and Zionism (3)
Development of the Zionist idea and its implementation; Israel and its historic purpose as a center of religious and political hope. LEC

302 Art and Archaeology of Ancient Assyria (3)
The history and development of ancient Assyrian culture; focus on how individual strains of different cultures in the variegated peoples that make up the ancestry and contemporaries of the historical Assyrians can be reworked by these ancient peoples to create a sense of common heritage; the relationship between ancient Assyria and biblical history. LEC

304 Mesopotamian Archaeology (3)
A study of the masterpieces of the architecture, painting, and sculpture of the societies that lived in the Tigris and Euphrates Valleys until the era of the Persian Empire. LEC

385 Maimonides: The Guide for the Perplexed (3)
The actual text will be used as a foundation for this course as fundamental issues of Judaism will be viewed through the eyes of Maimonides. LEC

401 Aspects of American Jewish History (3)
Selected topics in American Jewish history emphasizing the period since the East European migration (1890s); reciprocal impact of America on Jews and that of Jews on the cultural development of the United States. SEM

Religion and Thought

112 Women in the Jewish Family (3)
Comparative contemporary social and psychological studies of the woman will intermingle with rabbinic ones in an endeavor to bring into sharper focus women's status, social roles, behavior, and impact on Jewish life; the Jewish woman in historical perspective, drawing upon oriental, European, and modern American societies. LEC

203 Introduction to Judaism (3)
Judaism and the rich Jewish legacy: basic philosophical, theological, social, and political values of Judaism. LEC

204 Seminar in Jewish Ethics (3)
Ethical principles of Judaism: love, justice, holiness, freedom of will, dignity of man, purpose of life, imitatio dei, family life, education, social welfare, race, and ecology. SEM

206 Chassidic Philosophy (3)
Unity of God; purpose of life; love and fear of God; significance of Jewish ritual holidays according to the various Chassidic groups. LEC

207 Women in Jewish Society (3)
Prerequisite: JDS 112 or JDS 209
The status of women in the structure of Jewish law. Emphasis will be paid to the variety of stresses, both legal and social, placed on Jewish women from ancient times to the contemporary world. LEC

225 Modern Jewish Thought (3)
Concerns of Jewish religion today: faith, practice, Israel, the Holocaust, science, and the deity-according to Hermann Cohen, Leo Baeck, Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, Abraham Heschel, and Mordecai Kaplan. LEC

253 Ethics of the Jewish Bible (3)
An in-depth look at key biblical events, including the creation, man's first sin, the sin of the golden calf. What do these events mean? What is their symbolic significance? LEC

280 Jewish Mysticism (3)
Jewish outlook concerning the mysteries of creation, the mystical concepts of the soul, reincarnation. LEC

283 The Holocaust and Jewish Law (3)
Full range of legal and ethical problems posed during the Holocaust and the precedent-setting decisions set down in the response literature. LEC

284 Israel and Jewish Law (3)
Introduction to a full range of legal, ethical, and theological issues that surround the status of biblical and Talmudic Israel; legal and theological questions that emerge and reemerge at the establishment of a modern Jewish state. LEC

285 Talmudic Law (3)
Introduction to various processes, synthetic and analytic, out of which Jewish law developed its intricate legal systems. SEM

295 Development of Jewish Law (3)
Historical, sociological, and legal concerns in early and later rabbinic literature that led to an understanding of the trends of Jewish legal history through the centuries. LEC

296 Jewish Business Ethics (3)
A survey of Jewish business attitudes from the perspective of Jewish law and ethics. This course will endeavor to familiarize the student with the history and development of Jewish business law and ethics, as well as introduce the student to a comparative study of Jewish and American law relating to business and economic issues. LEC

382 Topics in Talmudic Law (3)
Study of how Jewish law developed, its intricate legal systems, including civil and ritual law. LEC

384 Maimonides: His Life and Works (3)
Maimonides' life in Spain, Palestine, and Egypt; Maimonides and Aristotelian philosophy; the Mishnah Torah, the Guide for the Perplexed, and the Thirteen Principles of Faith. SEM

391 The Feminine Dimension in Kabbalistic Text (3)
Examines the symbolic position of the feminine in Jewish mystical tradition through intensive, close reading of primary sources of kabbalistic texts, many of which have not yet been translated into English. The instructor will translate and provide photocopies of several of these readings. LEC

396 Jewish Medical Ethics (3)
Jewish moral, ethical, and religious principles in medical practice: use of Jewish legal response to abortion; definition of death; euthanasia; contraception; sterilization; semen testing; artificial insemination; circumcision; organ transplants; sex changes; religious observations in the hospital. SEM

399 Redemption in Jewish Thought (3)
A comprehensive study of Judaism's view of redemption and the world to come. LEC

Language

141 Introduction to Yiddish I (3)
Students acquire the fundamentals of the sound system of Yiddish structure and basic skills of reading and writing. LEC

142 Introduction to Yiddish II (3)
Second semester of introductory course. LEC

151 Elementary Modern Hebrew I (5)
Introductory Hebrew Language; elements of reading, writing, and grammar; large Israeli culture component to make language study relevant; the spoken idiom. LEC

152 Elementary Modern Hebrew II (5)
Improvement of reading and writing skills, and conversation; complex verbal patterns; daily use of the language in an Israeli setting. LEC

250 Introduction to Biblical Hebrew (5)
Reading and understanding the Hebrew Bible without recourse to complicated grammatical exegeses; fundamentals, not the problems of the language, stressed. LEC

251 Intermediate Hebrew I (3)
Improvement of reading and writing; complex syntactical patterns; conversations; letters, and filling out of official forms and documents; news broadcasts discussed; newspapers read. LEC

252 Intermediate Hebrew II (3)
Review and mastery of materials learned in JDS 251. Continuation of irregular verbs and verbal patterns. Concentration on oral comprehension and speech, reading, and discussions of newspaper articles. LEC

262 Topics in Hebrew Language and Literature (3)
A complement to the offerings of the Judaic Studies and World Languages Institute; Hebrew grammar; reading of literary texts of various periods in the original tongue. LEC

265 Readings in the Hebrew Bible (3)
Readings of selected texts in the Hebrew Bible, in Hebrew, for beginning students to introduce the various literary topics, improve reading skills, develop vocabulary, review basic grammar. LEC

266 Minor Hebrew Prophets (3)
Book of Amos and other minor prophets in Hebrew; analysis of the style of Hebrew prophecy; grammatical exercises to improve and reinforce knowledge of syntax and vocabulary construction. LEC

267 Wisdom Literature in the Hebrew Bible (3)
Selections from the books of Proverbs and Psalms in Hebrew illustrating the styles of this type of didactic literature in the poetry of the Hebrew Bible. LEC

*For advanced Hebrew, see World Languages Institute - Hebrew

Hebrew Literature in Translation

111 Great Jewish Books (3)
Introduction to and analysis of the great works of Jewish literature from ancient to modern times: the Bible, Talmud; Guide for the Perplexed; poetry of the golden age in Spain; the great moderns, such as Agnon. LEC

209 Women in Jewish Literature (3)
Woman's role in classical Jewish literature; Pentateuchal narrative, Chronicles, Song of Songs, and the books of Ruth and Esther. LEC

210 Introduction to the Old Testament (3)
Critical and thematic, historic literary study of the roots of Judeo-Christian tradition as recorded in the Law, Prophets, and the Writings of ancient Israel; different methods of biblical criticism. LEC

242 Hebrew Literature in Translation (3)
Readings of the major Hebrew authors from the Haskalah (nineteenth-century Hebrew language renaissance) until today's writers in Israel and America. Themes emphasize cultural survival and other current topics in Hebrew literature. LEC

Note: For additional courses in Jewish literature in translation, see the course offerings of the Department of English (e.g., ENG 359-360 The Bible as Literature, ENG 377 Approaches to Jewish Literature, and ENG 380 Jewish Writers).

253 Ethical Symbolism in Biblical Literature (3)
Main features of Pentateuchal (Five Books of Moses) literature: its narrative, characters, narrative patterns, ethical roles, and standards. LEC

254 Rashi's Commentaries on the Bible (3)
Rashi's interpretive methods as compared to those of Ibn Ezra, Nachmanides, and the Kimchis. LEC

255 Jewish Folklore (3)
Elements of Jewish folklore as presented in the Talmud, Midrash, and later rabbinic literature: stories, riddles, parables, homilies, proverbs, songs, and aphorisms about and of the rabbis. LEC

288 Old Testament Prophets (3)
Prophetic vision of the Old Testament and its relations to realities of life of the people of Israel-personal; social; political; uses biblical texts. SEM

© 2000 University at Buffalo Undergraduate Catalog 2000-2001