From the 16th to the 20th centuries, modernity presented unique social and cultural challenges to European Jews considering such issues as personal belief, the meaning of Jewish ritual acts, and the notion of a "chosen people."
How did the Enlightenment, political emancipation, nationalism, socialism, and anti-Semitism affect Jewish thinkers of the 18th and 19th centuries and beyond?
What were the implications of the Holocaust for the future of the Jewish faith?
This course examines these and other issues and the historical figures who grappled with them, including Benedict Spinoza, Moses Mendelssohn, Abraham Geiger, Samson Raphael Hirsch, Mordechai Kaplan, Abraham Heschel, Martin Buber, and many others.