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BTI Consortium | Last Updated April 11, 2023 - 5:00PM
JUDAIC STUDIES
School
Boston College School of Theology & Ministry
TMNT8066
Second Temple Judaisms
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA23
This course surveys the diverse forms of Judaism that are present during the Second Temple period (519 BCE- 70 CE) in order to better understand the rich cultural and religious context from which Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism emerged. Topics that will be discussed include canonization; deuterocanon, rewritten Bible; prayer and ritual; Hellenistic Judaism; the Maccabean Period; Messianism; Purity/Impurity; Dead Sea Scrolls; Philo; Josephus; Paul and others.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Angela Kim Harkins
F
9:00-12:00
Grading Option
Letter
Credits
3
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
Y
Notes
PREREQ: OT or NT Course. This course is well suited for students in the ThM, STL and STD programs.
School
Boston University Graduate Program in Religion
GRS RN684
The Holocaust
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA23
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
Steven Katz
TR
3:30-4:45
Grading Option
Audit; Letter; P/F
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
Y
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
DOCTORAL; MA allowed
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 1637
Jewish Mysticism: From the Spanish Expulsion to the New Age
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA23
This course will examine the phenomenon known as Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism, beginning with the Spanish Expulsion (1492) and extending to the present. Its focus will be on major movements of kabbalistic activity from Lurianic Kabbalah, Sabbateanism, Renaissance Kabbalah, Lithuanian Kabbalah, Hasidism, Neo-Hasidism, and Kabbalah in the New Age. The focus will be on changing and developing kabbalistic systems, questions of messianism and redemption, history, heresy, and the impact of modernity and postmodernity on kabbalistic praxis. Larger questions on mystical religion, law, secularism, and the differences between normative religion and spirituality will also be discussed.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Magid, Shaul
TBA
TBA
Grading Option
Letter, P/F, Audit
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
N
School
Hebrew College
HIS505
History of Jewish Music 1
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA23
This course provides a close look at the music of the Jewish people. Study involves modal and phrase analysis (and, where relevant, harmonic analysis) of traditional materials; historical analysis through close reading of primary sources; and functional analysis of attitudes and uses of Jewish music. Topics to be covered include analysis of how music is used by Jews, music in ancient Israel, traditional liturgical chant, rabbinical attitudes towards music, secular and paraliturgical folksongs and wedding music, and the beginnings of Jewish polyphony in the Italian Renaissance.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Dr. Joshua Jacobson
W
4:00-6:00PM
Grading Option
Letter, PF
Credits
2
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
BTI students should be aware that Hebrew College's courses include study in the Beit Midrash for 60-90 minutes prior to the class meeting time.
School
Hebrew College
JTH808
The Zohar
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA23
An introduction to the Jewish mystical tradition and the reading of its central text, the Zohar. Students will be taught the symbolic language of Kabbalah and will learn to read passages in the Aramaic original, but also using the new translation and commentary of the Pritzker edition.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Rabbi Allan Lehmann
T
9:15-10:45AM
Grading Option
Letter, PF
Credits
2
Professor Approval Req'd?
Y
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
Y
Notes
BTI students should be aware that Hebrew College's courses include study in the Beit Midrash for 60-90 minutes prior to the class meeting time.
School
Hebrew College
RAB529
Theories of Halakah
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA23
This course will provide an introduction to theories of halakhah and halakhic literature. We will contextualize halakhah within a wider world of legal theory as well as examine this particularly Jewish expression of law. As we gain a more expansive understanding of the development of halakhah and halakhic literature, we will also have the opportunity to consider how the languages of halakhah can be a resource for our individual and communal Jewish practices.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Rabbi Dr. Jane Kanarek
M
2:30-4:00PM
Grading Option
Letter, PF
Credits
2
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
Y
Notes
BTI students should be aware that Hebrew College's courses include study in the Beit Midrash for 60-90 minutes prior to the class meeting time.
School
Boston University Graduate Program in Religion
GRS RN628
Modern Judaism
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA23
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. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Steven Katz
TR
12:30-1:45
Grading Option
Audit; Letter; P/F
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
Y
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
DOCTORAL; MA allowed
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 1655
Jews and Race
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA23
This course will look at the long historical trajectory of Jews and race, beginning in the Middle Ages and focusing primarily on European modernity, America, including the complex alliance of Jews and Blacks from slavery to BLM, the role of race in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and the rise of Islamophobia. The goal of this course is to better understand the nature of Jews as a genos/race/ethos/people as they are labeled by others as well as how they self-identify. Jews identified as a "race," and were identified as such by others, until the 1930s, after which ethnos served as a substitute. The question of "whiteness" loomed large for Jews in America; are Jews white, and if so, what are the implications of their "whiteness"? Finally, we will explore more recent iterations of this vexing issue in contemporary politics that includes "Jews of Color," Zionism, Israel/Palestine, conversion to Judaism, and progressive politics in America.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Magid, Shaul
TBA
TBA
Grading Option
Letter
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
N
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 3668
Selected Works of Twentieth Century Jewish Theology
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA23
A close reading of selected works of Jewish theology from 1920 to 1980 (approximately), with special attention to the questions of God, Torah, and Israel in light of modernity and the challenges and opportunities that it presents with regard to traditional Jewish practice, belief, and identity. Authors read will be drawn mostly from the following: Buber, Rosenzweig, Kaplan, Soloveitchik, Heschel, Leibowitz, Fackenheim, Greenberg, and Wyschogrod. No prerequisites. By permission only: students should submit an application to the instructor by September 5, 2023. Jointly offered in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences as Religion 1255.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Levenson, Jon
TR
10:30-11:45am
Grading Option
Letter, P/F, Audit
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
Y
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
N
School
Hebrew College
JTH800
Hasidut II
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA23
This course will engage with the texts teachings of early hasidism. Students will read and analyze examples of these teachings, and engage with contemporary scholarship on the topic.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Rabbi Dr. Nehemia Polen
T
2:30-4:00PM
Grading Option
Letter, PF
Credits
2
Professor Approval Req'd?
Y
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
Y
Notes
BTI students should be aware that Hebrew College's courses include study in the Beit Midrash for 60-90 minutes prior to the class meeting time.
School
Hebrew College
RAB500
Core Text-Rabbinics 1: Berakhot 1
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA23
Through intensive, guided study of one full chapter of the tractate Berakhot, this first semester inducts first-year Rabbinical students into the discipline of traditional Rabbinical learning. Course work covers essential themes in the field of liturgy while building skills that are necessary for reading, understanding, appreciating, analyzing and participating in Talmudic discourse.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Rabbi Shoshana Rosenbaum
MW
11:30AM-1:00PM & 11:45AM-1:15PM
Grading Option
Letter, PF
Credits
3
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
Y
Notes
BTI students should be aware that Hebrew College's courses include study in the Beit Midrash for 60-90 minutes prior to the class meeting time.
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