090088 VO Greek Jewry: History and Culture II (2022S)

This course comprises the second of a two-part survey of the history and culture of the Jews of Greece in the modern era. It focuses, in particular, on the period between the First World War (1914-1919) through the Holocaust and Axis Occupation of Greece (1941-1945) and to the fall of the Military Junta (1974). It will concentrate on three Jewish communities (Kavala, Thessaloniki and Ioannina) as “lieux de memoire”. Therefore it will combine the macro history around formative events of Greek history with the micro history of the three communities.
A “digital excursion” to these cities will allow us a transdisciplinary approach to the past. We will combine sources – from literature, oral history, memoires, (digital) archival sources, visual sources, maps and architecture – in order to offer a manifold picture of the trajectories of these communities during the twentieth century. Particular attention will be paid to the cultural and linguistic diversity of Jewish experience and as well as to the recurrent questions of Jewish identity and integration, internal religious reform, political emancipation, Zionism and antisemitism.
Through the critical analysis of contemporaneous visual sources, religious texts, political and literary accounts, memoirs, maps as well as numerous digital archival sources, this this course aims to introduce and familiarise students with both the key events in twentieth century Greek-Jewish history as well as the specific trajectories of the communities of Thessaloniki, Kavala and Ioannina.