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R. Laurence Moore, in his work on religious outsiders in America, argues that the Jews were both an ordinary minority and an unusual minority in the U.S.; ordinary in that they arrived with relatively the same limitations and possibilities of other European immigrants, but unusual in that Jews had no plans to leave. This course is a historical survey of sorts, but the emphasis is on religion—that is, how Judaism and its American practitioners responded to historical events in the New World through an emphasis on immigration, politics, cultural creativity, religious change, and the establishment of a diasporic community with ties to Jews throughout the world. Attention will also be paid to Judaism in Rochester. This course should equip you to understand—historically and critically—the ever-changing self-perception of Jews in the United States. |