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4 Week Learning Series with Associate Professor Peter Schattner

This four-part series aims to answer two principal and related questions: 1) What is Jewish identity? and 2) How does the Jewish story help us to understand Jewish identity?

Components of Jewish identity which help define it include religion, peoplehood, culture, memory and land.

The Jewish story has gone through at least four major eras, with each one redefining Jewish identity: Ancient Israel (1200 BCE – 70 CE) – living in one’s own land; Rabbinic Judaism (70 CE - 1700) – adaptation to the loss of the Temple and living in the diaspora; Modernity (1700 – 1948) – the Jewish enlightenment (Haskalah), emancipation, religious reform, the rise of Zionism, assimilation, and the Holocaust; Contemporary Judaism (1948 – today) – a multilayered identity involving Israel, the American scene and Australia.

The purpose of this course will be to present to participants some of the major historical events that I see as forming the backbone of the Jewish story (i.e. a list of 20 key events and people that help explain the changing nature of Jewish identity).

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