The Jewish Community in the Post-Communist Lands of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe (Rebekah Klein-Pejsova)

This year marks the 30^th anniversary of the Communist regimes in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. How have the changes affected Jews and Jewish communities in the region? How has the experience of the Holocaust, Communism, and Post-Communism shaped Jewish relations with the Jewish world, between Jews and non-Jews, and with the state? What has the re-emergence of European Jewry meant for the development of Jewish identities globally? This course explores these questions through three dominant frames: 1) the return to Europe and the “Jewish 1990s” (Zpět do Evropy!), Post-Communist Jewish identities, or when did you first learn that you are Jewish? and 3)  Memory work. Students will come away with a deepened understanding of the ruptures and continuities that have shaped contemporary Jewish individual and collective identities, of memory processes, heritage, commemoration, and preservation, and the far-reaching implications of the political changes of 1989 in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. We will use primary and secondary literature, fiction, memoirs, film, and other media, and local sites in our exploration. Each course session will contain two parts: a 45 minute lecture and a 45 minute seminar. *Bonus: taught by a relic of the Jewish 1990s.

1) Monday 3rd December, 15:50-17:20, room 313: De-Fiddler-on-the-Roof-ization: Rejoining the living narrative

2) Wednesday, 5th December, 9:10-10:40, room 313: Return to Europe? Jewish community revival, Klezmer, and tourism

3) Wednesday, 5th December, 17:30-19:00, room 313: The Jewish 1990s v. Resurgent antisemitism

4) Thursday, 6th December, 17:30-19:00, room 313: Emigration: Who goes where?

5) Monday 10th December, 15:50-17:20, room 313: When did you first learn that you are Jewish?

6) Wednesday, 12th December, 9:10-10:40, room 313: Opening Pandora’s Box: Institutional and Individual Jewish identities

7) Wednesday, 12th December, 17:30-19:00, room 313: Living in the house of the dead

8) Thursday, 13th December, 17:30-19:00, room 313: Sites of Memory, Sites of Preservation

9) Monday 17th December, 15:50-17:20, room 313: Fragmented memory

10) Wednesday, 19th December, 9:10-10:40, room 313: Documentation work and the digital diaspora

11) Wednesday, 19th December, 17:30-19:00, room 313: Neighbors

12) Thursday, 20th December, 17:30-19:00, room 313: Assault on Holocaust History

 

Pořádá Ústav východoevropskch studií.

  https://uves.ff.cuni.cz/cs/2018/11/26/the-jewish-community-in-the-post-communist-lands-of-central-eastern-and-southeastern-europe-sylabus-and-times/