090051 VO Greek Jewry: History and Culture I (2021W)

ContentThis course comprises the first of a two-part survey of the history and culture of the Jews of Greece in the modern era. It specifically focuses on the period from the War of Independence (1821-1833) through to the Balkans Wars (1912-1913). Jewish communities were concentrated mainly in urban centres such as Thessaloniki, Athens, Larissa, Ioannina, Corfu and Kavala that became gradually part of the Greek state during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The course will therefore examine the relations between the state authorities, the wider Greek society and the Jewish communities of Greece within the context of the formative political events of this period. These events include the Greek War of Independence, the Enosis (union) of the Ionian Islands (1864), the annexation of the former Ottoman regions of Thessaly and Epirus (1881), the Greco-Ottoman War (1897) and the Balkan Wars (1912-1913). Throughout the course emphasis and attention will be paid to the linguistic and cultural diversity of the Greek Jewish experience as well as to the recurrent questions of Jewish identity and integration, internal religious reform, political emancipation, Zionism and antisemitism.Aims and MethodsThrough the critical analysis of contemporaneous visual sources, religious texts, political and literary accounts, memoirs, maps as well as numerous digital archival sources, this course aims first to introduce and familiarise students with the key events, contexts and themes in the social and political formation of modern Greek Jewry and second to introduce micro historical methods for the analysis of the sources. By visiting digitally the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki we will furthermore discuss the representation of historical sources in the museum.