History

Most of us picture Judaism and Christianity as two distinct religions from the moment Christianity appeared. For several centuries the two were entangled, overlapping, and often hard to tell apart. This course follows their shared history from the Babylonian exile in 586 BCE to the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. We begin with the rebuilding of Jewish life after the exile and the upheavals that followed: Hellenism, the Hasmonean revolt, and the arrival of Rome and Herod. We then turn to the many Second Temple “Judaisms,” the sects, movements, prophets, and revolutionaries among whom Jesus of Nazareth lived and taught, and to the Jewish revolts of 66–73 and 132–135 CE, which reshaped Jewish life and hastened the rise of both rabbinic Judaism and the early Jesus movement. The final sessions follow the two traditions as they move apart. On one side are the codification of the Mishnah and the beginnings of rabbinic Judaism; on the other, the Jesus movement through persecution, martyrdom, and fights over orthodoxy and heresy, up to Constantine and the Church as an imperial institution. Drawing on recent scholarship, including the work of Daniel Boyarin, we’ll see how long the ties between the two communities lasted and how each came to define itself, and be defined, as separate from the other. Who this is for: Anyone curious how Judaism and Christianity began and how they separated Readers interested in Second Temple Judaism, the historical Jesus, or early rabbinic Judaism Anyone who assumes the two were always separate religions and would like to see that assumption tested What you'll leave with: An outline of Jewish history from the Babylonian exile to the Mishnah A picture of Jesus of Nazareth within the Jewish world of his time An account of when Judaism and Christianity became separate religions and who drew the lines between them Four Mondays: October 5, 12, 19 and 26, 7–8:30pm Pacific Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.

Where is a stateless culture at home? Yiddish is the language of one of the largest and longest-lasting diasporic cultures in the world, often defined by its lack of a homeland. But what if Yiddish speakers, artists, and writers did feel at home in diaspora, whether in a town their family had lived in for generations or a new city they'd just arrived in, an at-homeness with no claim to sovereignty or state? This course explores four spaces of Yiddish life and writing: Dos Shtetl (The Town) · Market days and mud, but also railways, factory work, political argument, and people planning their departure. Generally rooftop-fiddler-free Di Shtot (The City) · Where millions went, wandering busy streets where technology, politics, economics, and art combined into new and disorienting possibilities Der Hoyf (The Courtyard) · The urban courtyard that defined local life across central and eastern Europe, and reappeared as far away as Buenos Aires Di Svive (The Natural World) · The forests of Belarus, the steppes of Siberia, the mountains of Quebec and New York,where writers turned their attention from people to landscape Through close reading, discussion, and weekly writing prompts, the course asks what these spaces can teach about diasporic belonging and the meaning of home without a state. Who this is for: Readers curious about Yiddish literature, Jewish diaspora history, or modern Jewish culture Anyone interested in place, migration, and belonging in literature What you'll leave with: A map of Yiddish literature's key imaginative geographies: the shtetl, the city, the courtyard, the natural world Firsthand familiarity with major modern Yiddish writers in translation Your own short pieces of writing from the course's weekly prompts Readings include Avrom Karpinowitz, Moyshe Kulbak, Mendel Mann, Anna Margolin, Mimi Pinzon, Fradl Shtok, Avrom Sutzkever, Miriam Ulinover, and more, all in English translation. No prior knowledge of Yiddish required. Four Thursdays: October 8, 15, 22 and 29 at 12–1:15pm Pacific Time Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.

Two hundred fifty years ago, American revolutionaries reached for the words of the Hebrew Bible to make their case for independence. The phrase engraved on the Liberty Bell itself, "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof," comes directly from the Book of Leviticus. In this course, we'll trace how biblical texts including Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy shaped the political imagination of the Revolutionary generation, from sermons and pamphlets to the imagery Franklin and Jefferson proposed for the Great Seal of the United States. We’ll also go back roughly 2,500 years to ask what these passages meant when they were written: who wrote them, why, and what ideas of liberty, covenant, and peoplehood they carried for ancient Israel. Who this is for: Anyone interested in the Hebrew Bible’s place in American history Readers curious how ancient texts get reinterpreted across centuries No prior Bible study needed What you'll leave with: A close reading of key passages in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy in their ancient context An understanding of how Revolutionary-era sermons and pamphlets used those passages, down to the proposals for the Great Seal Nine Sundays: October 11, 18, 25, November 1, 8, 15, 22, December 6 & 13, 5:15–6:45pm Pacific Time Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.

This two-part illustrated class introduces ancient Egyptian history, religion, and daily life, with special attention to the periods and objects in the de Young Museum’s Treasures of the Pharaohs . We’ll begin with an overview of Egypt’s thirty dynasties, then turn to religious belief and everyday life, ending with the Lost City of Amenhotep III, a special feature of the exhibition. The class works whether or not you’ve seen the show. Who this is for: Anyone planning a visit to the exhibition or who has already been Anyone curious about ancient Egypt; no background in Egyptology needed What you'll leave with: Where the exhibition’s objects fit in Egypt’s long history What the Lost City of Amenhotep III reveals about life in ancient Egypt Two Thursdays: October 15 & 22, 6–7:30pm Pacific Time Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.

J. Robert Oppenheimer led the scientific work at Los Alamos, helped bring about the atomic age, and later became one of the best-known victims of the Red Scare. In Robert Oppenheimer: The Sphinx Without a Secret, his new biography in Yale University Press’s Jewish Lives series, David Rieff looks past the public story to Oppenheimer’s inner life: his childhood, his personal relationships, and his deeply ambivalent relation to being Jewish. Rieff joins Steve Wasserman, publisher of Heyday Books and former editor-at-large for Yale University Press, to talk about the man behind the legend and why Oppenheimer still fascinates more than eighty years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Image: Ben Shahn, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1954. © 2026 Estate of Ben Shahn / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Who this is for Anyone who wants more of Oppenheimer’s story than the recent film told Readers curious how his Jewish background shaped him What you'll leave with A fuller picture of Oppenheimer’s inner life, from childhood on The chance to put your own questions to the author Sunday, October 25, 1:30–3pm Pacific Time Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.

We often refer to Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages as "the Rabbinic Period," on account of the massive literary production of the rabbis, including the two Talmuds and many midrashic works. But there is a wide-ranging and rich Jewish history known from Latin, Greek, Syriac, and Arabic sources that is entirely ignored in rabbinic literature.These non-Jewish sources offer glimpses into Jewish history, but they are few and often hostile to Jews. How can the historian separate real historical Jews from the symbolic Jews conjured out of Christian and Muslim theological prejudice? In this course, Fred Astren (San Francisco State University) takes up that question, telling stories the rabbis did not tell. Who this is for: Readers interested in Jewish history beyond the rabbinic and Talmudic sources Anyone curious how Jews appear in Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Arabic historical sources Students of Late Antiquity, the early medieval world, or Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations What you'll leave with: Familiarity with how Jews are depicted in Christian and Muslim historical writing Tools for evaluating historically biased or theologically motivated sources A sharper sense of the line between historical Jews and symbolic ones Four Thursdays: October 29, November 5, 12, and 19, 6–7:30pm Pacific Time Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.

Erich Gruen (UC Berkeley), has spent decades studying Jews in the Greco-Roman world, and much of his work questions popular assumptions about Jewish isolation, religious purity, and political resistance in antiquity. In four sessions he takes up some of the most debated episodes in ancient Jewish history. Each session takes on a question that has divided scholars and puzzled general readers alike: Were Jews in antiquity accused of ritual murder, the charge later known as blood libel? Did they reject Greek mythology as incompatible with their traditions, or engage with it in surprising ways? And what is the history behind Hanukkah? Who this is for Anyone curious about Jews in the ancient world Students of classical antiquity who want to go past the standard accounts Anyone who has wondered where Hanukkah comes from What you'll leave with Answers to four contested questions about ancient Jewish history, and the evidence behind them A way of telling historical evidence apart from later myth-making Four Sundays: November 1, 8, 15, and 22, 2–3:30pm Pacific Time Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.

Founded in the Russian Empire in 1897, the Jewish Labor Bund became one of the most influential Jewish political movements in Eastern Europe. The Bund was secular, socialist, and rooted in the principle of doikayt , or “hereness”: the belief that Jews should fight for dignity and equality in the countries where they lived. It played a major role in Jewish political and cultural life before the Second World War. Most of its members were murdered in the Holocaust, and the movement itself was largely erased from popular memory. What, if anything, does the Bund’s legacy offer American Jewish life today? In this four-session reading group, we’ll explore that question through Molly Crabapple’s new book, Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund , together with supplementary materials. We’ll consider the Bund’s history, its vision of solidarity and Jewish life in the diaspora, and why its ideas still provoke argument. Who this is for: Readers interested in modern Jewish history and politics Anyone curious about Jewish socialism and secular Jewish culture Readers who enjoy discussing a new book in a group What you'll leave with A grounding in the Bund’s history and its idea of doikayt A discussion of what, if anything, the Bund offers American Jewish life today Four Fridays: November 6, 13, 20, December 4, 12–1pm Pacific Time Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.

Bukharian, Kavkazi (Mountain), and Georgian Jews have lived in Central Asia and the Caucasus for many centuries, and their histories touch the Sephardic, Mizrahi, and Russian-speaking Jewish worlds at once. This three-session course introduces each community in turn and explores the multilayered, millennia-old stories of these communities. Who this is for: Anyone curious about the Jewish communities of Central Asia and the Caucasus Readers interested in Sephardic, Mizrahi, and Russian-speaking Jewish identity What you'll leave with: An introduction to the history of each community A sense of how they relate to the Sephardic, Mizrahi, and Russian-speaking Jewish worlds Three Tuesdays: November 10, 17 and 24, 6–7:30pm Pacific Time Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.

Twenty years ago, historian Cheryl Lynn Greenberg published Troubling the Waters: Black-Jewish Relations in the American Century, a landmark study of the complicated political relationship between Black and Jewish Americans. Challenging both the nostalgic idea of a seamless Black-Jewish alliance and the notion that the relationship simply collapsed, Greenberg traced a history in which cooperation and conflict, shared political goals and competing interests, were intertwined from the beginning. Two decades later, Greenberg returns to Troubling the Waters to ask what has changed, what has endured, and how the history looks from the vantage point of today. What can the past tell us about Black-Jewish relations now, and does the idea of a Black-Jewish alliance still help us understand the political relationship between the two communities? Who this is for Anyone interested in the history of Black-Jewish relations in America, beyond the simplified alliance-or-collapse narrative Readers of Troubling the Waters looking to hear from the author directly, twenty years on Those thinking about coalition politics and how shared and competing interests shape relationships between communities over time What you'll leave with Greenberg’s account of how cooperation and conflict between Black and Jewish Americans were intertwined from the start Her view of what has changed in twenty years, and whether the idea of an alliance still helps explain the present Two Wednesdays: November 11 & 18, 6–7:30pm Pacific Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.

This four-session course introduces Sigmund Freud’s thought through his 1905 book Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious . The book is full of jokes from the world of Freud’s father: Jewish Central Europe rather than cosmopolitan Vienna, a land of matchmakers, schnorrers, and ambivalence about assimilation. We will focus on Freud's own texts in order to understand him as a Jewish thinker hoping to operate in a universalistic scientific idiom, trying to produce a science of the mind out of the material of Jewish experience. We will, of course, think about the jokes themselves, and about what they do for us. Freud said they provide "victory," but he never said over what, leaving us to answer that question for ourselves. Who this is for: Anyone curious about Freud's Jewish background and how it shaped his thought Readers interested in Jewish humor, jokes, and Central European Jewish culture Students of psychoanalysis, Freud, or the history of ideas Anyone who enjoys close reading; no background required What you'll leave with: A close reading of Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious A way of reading Freud as a Jewish thinker as well as a “universal” scientist Your own answer to Freud’s open question: what victory do jokes provide? Four Thursdays: November 12, 19, December 3 & 10, 1–2:30pm Pacific Time Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.

Ladino music records the history of the Sephardic world: melodies that joined medieval Jewish liturgy with the Christian and Muslim music of Iberia, then traveled after 1492 to North Africa, Europe, and above all the Ottoman Empire, taking on new influences along the way. The course gives one session each to the genres at the center of Sephardic life: romansas (narrative ballads), kantikas (lyrical songs), and the historical poems and liturgical hymns known as coplas and piyyutim . Throughout, we’ll look at how oral transmission, community identity, and gender shaped each tradition, from medieval Iberia to today’s revival. Session 1: The Narrative Tradition (Romansas) Ballads that began with Iberian street minstrels had spread through Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Spain by the fifteenth century. We’ll listen to romansas sung mostly by women and see how Sephardic communities reshaped their themes of loyalty, honor, and exile to reflect Jewish life. Session 2: Life Cycle and Song (Kantikas) Kantikas , the tradition’s lyrical popular songs, took shape under Mediterranean and Balkan influence from the late nineteenth century on. Sung mostly by women, they cover love, family, weddings, lullabies, and laments, along with songs for the life cycle and the holidays. Session 3: Faith and Identity ( Coplas and Piyyutim ) These two genres were performed by men. Coplas , composed by rabbis and scholars across the Ottoman Empire, taught Jewish history and ethics and chronicled real events such as plagues and political upheavals. Sephardic piyyutim , rooted in the Golden Age of medieval Spain, are sung in Hebrew and form the core of synagogue worship. Who this is for Anyone interested in Sephardic history, Jewish music, or the Ladino language and its revival Students of Jewish liturgy and poetry curious about Sephardic traditions of coplas and piyyutim Readers and singers drawn to the oral and folk traditions of the Mediterranean and Ottoman worlds What you'll leave with A grounding in the history of Ladino music from medieval Iberia through the Ottoman Empire to its modern revival Familiarity with the three core genres of Sephardic song An understanding of how gender, oral transmission, and community identity shaped this tradition over centuries Three Wednesdays: November 25, December 2 and 9, 1–2:30pm Pacific Time Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.

Why did so many Jews in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries become revolutionaries? Ask the question in New York or Warsaw and you get one set of answers. In Baghdad, Casablanca, or Tehran, the story changes. Radical Jewish Politics: A Global Perspective, a new volume from Rutgers University Press, starts in the Middle East and North Africa, with Jewish communists in Iraq and Egypt and anticolonial fighters in Algeria and Tunisia, and zooms out to Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, and the Soviet Union. What emerges is a history of Jews who wanted to remake the world and, just as much, to find a place in it. Communism, anarchism, and anticolonial nationalism all promised that place, and all of them, sooner or later, exacted a price: prison, exile, or Jewishness itself. Editors Nathaniel Deutsch and Alma Heckman of UC Santa Cruz and Tony Michels of the University of Wisconsin–Madison join us to talk about what this new global view reveals. Who this is for: Anyone interested in modern Jewish history beyond Europe and the United States Readers curious about Jewish communists, anarchists, and anticolonial activists What you'll leave with: A look at Jewish radicals in Iraq, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Argentina, and Brazil and how local conditions shaped their choices The chance to put your questions to the volume’s three editors Monday, December 7, 6–7:30pm Pacific Time Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.