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BTI Consortium | Last Updated April 21, 2026 - 6:00PM
JUDAIC STUDIES
School
Boston College Theology Department
THEO5358
How Israel Matters
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA26
Israel, both the people and the land, are central to Jewish theology as concrete manifestations of Gods covenants. This course will explore the evolving meanings of these concepts from the Bible to today, looking at themes like peoplehood, life in the land, exile from it, and (messianic) return. The second part of the course will focus specifically on the theologies of a range of modern Jewish thinkers, with the goal of helping students to understand aspects of contemporary Israel and its meaning to world Jewry.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Langer, Ruth
TR
03:00PM-04:15PM
Grading Option
Letter, P/F, Audit
Credits
3
Online?
N
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
UGRAD/GRAD SPLIT
School
Boston University Graduate Program in Religion
CASRN 684/CASRN 384
The Holocaust
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA26
Rise of German (and European) antisemitism; rise of Nazism; 1935 Nuremberg Laws; the initial Jewish reaction; racial theory; organizing mass murder including ghettos, concentration camps, killing squads, and gas chambers; bystanders and collaborators (countries, organizations, and individuals); Jewish resistance; post-Holocaust religious responses; moral and ethical issues.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Katz, Steven
TR
3:30-4:45pm
Grading Option
Letter, P/F, Audit
Credits
4
Online?
N
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
N
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 1385
Religion and Nationalism: The Cases of Religious Zionism and Religious Anti-Zionism
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA26
The rise of nationalism in the nineteenth century raised a variety of issues relating to the role of religion in that European project. This course will focus on the challenges, obstacles, and role religion played in the national project Our case study will be Jewish nationalism also called Zionism. We will explore religious Zionism and religious anti-Zionism as competing philosophical movements within Jewish modernity. The focus will be less on historical events, though they are important, and more on the philosophical and theological foundations of a variety of Jewish reactions to nationalism. We will read across the plethora of Jewish voices who weighed in on the monumental Jewish project in modernity.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Magid
W
01:00pm-02:59pm
Grading Option
Letter
Credits
4
Online?
N
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
N
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 1845
Lamentations and Its Rabbinic Interpretations: Catastrophe and Recovery in Ancient Judaism: Seminar
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA26
A close historical-critical reading of the Book of Lamentations in Hebrew and a careful reading, also in Hebrew, of a generous sample of midrashim from Lamentations Rabbah. Emphasis upon the theological and literary dimensions. Prerequisite: Three years of college-level Hebrew (any period) and some previous experience with historical-critical methods. Not a course for those with a weak grasp of biblical grammar.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Levenson
R
03:00pm-04:59pm
Grading Option
HDS Student Option (LG/SUS/AUD)
Credits
4
Online?
N
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Prerequisites?
Y
Notes
Prerequisite: Three years of college-level Hebrew (any period) and some previous experience with historical-critical methods. Not a course for those with a weak grasp of biblical grammar.
School
Boston University Graduate Program in Religion
CASRN 628/CASRN 328
Modern Judaism
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA26
Encounters between Judaism and modernity from the Renaissance and Reformation; the Spanish expulsion and creation of Jewish centers in the New World; emancipation and its consequences; assimilation, Reform Judaism, Zionism, the American Jewish community, non-European communities, Jewish global migration, and modern antisemitism.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Katz, Steven
TR
12:30-1:45pm
Grading Option
Letter, P/F, Audit
Credits
4
Online?
N
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
N
School
Boston University School of Theology
STHTO 807
History of Israelite Religion
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA26
The origins and development of the religion of Israel and Judah from its earliest roots in Canaanite culture to its transformation in the Persian period. Attention to extra-biblical, as well as biblical evidence; the religion of family and countryside, as well as that of cities and elites; ritual behavior and mythological representation, and theological assertions and questionings.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Simonson, Brandon
M
6:30-9:15 pm
Grading Option
Letter
Credits
3
Online?
N
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
N
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 1480
Prayer Book Hebrew and the History of Jewish Liturgy
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA26
Throughout most of Jewish history, the form of the Hebrew language that most Jews have encountered is the language of Jewish prayer found in the Siddur (Jewish Prayer Book), including but not limited to the daily prayers that structure lived Jewish time. Course offerings in Hebrew within universities like Harvard, however, are typically limited to Biblical Hebrew and Modern Hebrew, with not much in between. Despite its centrality to Jewish life, the Siddur has received far less academic attention than the Bible and the Talmud. This course combines close reading of such materials in Hebrew with analysis of Jewish prayer from both historical and phenomenological perspectives. Students are required to have some background in Hebrew, equivalent to at least one year of biblical or modern Hebrew.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Magid
T
03:00pm-05:00pm
Grading Option
Letter
Credits
4
Online?
N
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Prerequisites?
Y
Notes
Students are required to have some background in Hebrew, equivalent to at least one year of biblical or modern Hebrew.
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