Jewish Studies Minor Courses

Fall 2026

For questions about whether any other course counts toward the minor please check with Professor Yael Aronoff at aronoffy@msu.edu.

ENG 356: Readings in Jewish Literature (3 credits)   

Instructor: Stephen Rachman   

Meeting times: Mon Wed 10:20-11:40AM  

Description: This course sets out to explore English-language-based Jewish-American writing in global literary-historical contexts. The last decades have seen a virtual explosion of important and interesting works by writers of Jewish backgrounds writing in American and global literary traditions. This writing ranges from sophisticated work from major established literary figures like Philip Roth and Cynthia Ozick to newer writers like Nicole Krauss, Dara Horn, and Nathan Englander. It reflects both a flowering of literary creativity and a cultural moment in which the lineaments of Jewish-American culture and tradition are being contested, re-imagined, and redrawn in global and historical terms. During the term we will read six recent works using a variety of shorter texts (stories and essays) as points of reference in the history of Jewish-American culture as it has emerged in the U.S. and in global literary context. We will also have recourse to several landmark films addressing Jewish-American experience and themes.  

HEB 101: Elementary Hebrew (4 credits)  

Instructor: Yore Kedem  

Meeting times: Mon Tue Wed Thu 9:10-10:00AM  

Description: Introduction to spoken and written Hebrew for conversation, reading, and research. Basic grammatical analysis of modern Hebrew.  

HEB 101 Section 2: Elementary Hebrew (4 credits)  

Instructor: Yore Kedem  

Meeting times: Tue and Thu 2:30-4:30PM  

Description: Introduction to spoken and written Hebrew for conversation, reading, and research. Basic grammatical analysis of modern Hebrew.  

HEB 201: Second year Hebrew (4 credits)   

Instructor: Yore Kedem  

Meeting times: Mon Tue Wed Thu 10:20-11:10AM  

Description: Intermediate level spoken and written Hebrew for conversation, reading, and research. Advanced grammatical analysis of modern Hebrew.    

HST 317: American Jewish History (3 credits)  

Instructor: Kirsten Fermaglich   

Meeting times: Mon Wed 3:00-4:20PM  

Description: American Jewish history from colonial period to present. Jewish immigration to the United States, patterns of religious and cultural adjustment, social relations and anti-Semitism, Jewish politics, the construction of Jewish identities.  

HST 392: History of the Holocaust (3 credits)  

Instructor: Karrin Hanshew   

Meeting times: Tue Thu 1:00-2:20PM  

Description: Nazi persecution and genocide in Europe, 1933-1945. Jewish experience within broader context. Perpetrators, victims, bystanders, and resistors. Post-Holocaust memory, film, literature, and philosophical implications.  

HST 411: European Jewish History (3 credits)   

Instructor: Andreas Bouroutis   

Meeting times: Tue Thu 1:00-2:20PM   

Description: The main focus of your historical exposure will be the diverse and dynamin Jewish communities in Europe. By examining the rich cultural, religious, economic and social history of the various communities you will be introduced in the great transformations of the European continent. What do we know about the Sephardi Jews of the Iberian Peninsula and why they had been exiled from their motherland? Where did they end? How Ashkenazi Jews shaped their identities in the various lands and what do we know about the Greek Romaniote Jews? Since Greece was a quite homogenous society with the vast majority of the population being Orthodox Christians, it’s a challenge for you to detect how a different religious group, the Jews, found its way to daily life. Hence, you will research the various ways that Jewish communities shaped both their religious affiliation and their identity through historical time.   

IAH 207-038: Literatures, Cultures, Identities (4 credits)  

Focus: Monsters and Monstrous  

Instructor: Vered Weiss  

Meeting times: Mon Wed 3:00-4:50PM  

Description: The twenty-first century has seen a surge in depictions of monsters in films and literature, from the extraordinary success of the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings franchises to Godzilla. What is the allure of monsters and why do we enjoy this kind of fear? What do monsters represent, and what hidden desires and anxieties do they allow authors and filmmakers to express? Throughout the eras and in every culture, we find variations of monstrous creatures that embody social boundaries, norms, and values. The course explores literary and cinematic texts that represent a variety of heroes, anti-heroes, monsters and others. We will review how these characters construct the notions of the “I” and the “other” and how they reflect cultural paradigms and socio-political changes. This is a team-taught course, which offers students the opportunities to work collaboratively on interdisciplinary projects with students from ISS, ISB and IAH.  

IAH 211D-001: Area Studies and Multicultural Civilizations: The Middle East (4 credits)   

Focus: Israeli Speculative Fiction  

Instructor: Vered Weiss  

Meeting times: Tue Thu 10:20-12:10PM  

Description: The course invites students to enter conversations about Israeli culture that go beyond discourses about what is real, and encounter, instead, discussions about how Israelis use speculative fiction to imagine what might be. Recognizing the significance of speculative literature in the reconfiguration of modern Israeli identities, the course outlines some of the main elements that locate Israeli speculative fiction in relation to world speculative literature on the one hand, and features that render it unique on the other. Offering an overview of Israeli speculative fiction, the course exposes the diversity of Israeli speculative literature production. The course explores texts by Etgar Keret, Assaf Gavron, Lavie Tidhar, Orly Castel-Bloom, Keren Landsman, Rotem Baruchin and Elana Gomel, among others.  

IAH 241G-002: Creative Arts and Humanities: Film and Culture (4 credits)  

Focus: Israeli Cinema and Television  

Instructor: Vered Weiss  

Meeting Times: Tue Thu 12:40-2:30PM  

Description: Through academic engagement with Israeli cinema and television, this course opens a window into the beauty and complexities of Israeli society. We will explore the plurality and diversity of Israeli society, which encompasses various sociopolitical, cultural communities. This course considers the various ways the filmic medium has portrayed Israel’s complex matrix of cultural identities. The different sessions address some of the major factors shaping Israeli culture (e.g., immigration; the regional conflict; gender politics; and queer identities).    

ISS 325: War and Revolution (4 credits)  

Instructor: Andreas Bouroutis  

Meeting times: Tue Thu Fri 10:20-11:40AM 

This course stretches from the American and the French Revolution to the World Wars, the Cold War and the recent conflicts. How the Orange Revolution of 2004 in Ukraine was succeeded by the Russian invasion and war of 2022? How conflicts affect people and nations creating migration and refugee waves? What kinds of expectations arise during revolutions and how do they really end?   

The course is a fascinating journey in time that presents the tectonic periods that changed humanity in the depth of time till today’s world. It examines how war and revolution mingled in the destruction of empires, the making of nation states, encouraged nationalism, reorganized social classes and crafted people identities. Moreover, this course aims to encompass different fields of human performance (daily life, social and economic activities, cultural performance) and to expose how conflicts affect people’s lives.   

Major events will work as landmarks for in depth analysis over the causes, the action and the consequences of periods of political and social upheaval. At a second layer the course will elaborate in the response and treatment of certain groups during turmoil periods, like the Jews in Europe. How Jews were emancipated after the French Revolution and how were they targeted by antisemitism and long lasting prejudices? How did we end with the biggest crime against humanity, the Holocaust? What do we know about the Romaniote Jewish communities in Greece and how their presence perceived in a homogenous Christian society? Moreover, migration and refugee currents in time will be analyzed based in the certain conditions (wars and revolutions) that they took place and the challenges that marked and changed modern societies through anguish and pain.   

Through a variety of case studies, the students will learn how to deal with historical, political and social phenomena (wars, revolutions – national uprisings and nation state building processes, social destruction – reconstruction) and detect how cornerstone events patterned individual and collective action and identities.  By the end of the course, students are expected to be able:  

To describe the major developments in the history of modern world;  

To demonstrate knowledge of historical events and periods of conflicts and upheaval and analyze individual and collective action in its historical context; 

To produce arguments explaining such events and developments, their causes, effects and long-term repercussions; and 

To understand how major events affect ordinary people and daily life.  

ISS 330B Asia: Social Science Prospective (4 credits)

Focus: Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations in the Middle East/Middle East and in Israel

Instructor: Liat Alon

Sec. 002: Meeting times: Tue Thu 8:00-9:50AM

Sec. 003: Meeting times: Tue Thu 10:20 AM-12:10 PM

MC 335 Sec. 301: Israeli Politics, Cultures and Society (4 credits)  

Instructor: Alon Tal   

Meeting times: Tue Thu 4:00-7:00PM   *Class ends Oct. 8th, with assignments due by mid-October*

Description: Analysis of Israeli politics and society. Relationship between society and: social and ethnic cleavages, culture and politics, political institutions and parties, political contestation, and democracy and the Jewish nature of the state. The course engages the mutual influences of domestic politics and foreign policy, and the influence of regional and international dynamics on domestic policy. The course seeks to familiarize students with and present critical perspectives on a range of issues associated with modern Israeli life including: its geopolitics, its parliamentary democracy and threats to it, demography, economics, the environment, as well as the complex history of past efforts to reach peace agreements, as well as varied perspectives on its wars. The class will include guest experts who join via zoom from the Middle East and include a simulation.  

MC 387: Jews and Antisemitism (4 Credits)   

Instructor: Amy Simon  

Meeting times: Mon Wed 10:20-11:40AM   

Description: MC 387 studies antisemitism both as a pressing problem in contemporary public affairs and as “the longest hatred,” a stubborn prejudice that has persisted for thousands of years. Since the beginning of Christianity, Jews have been singled out for persecution by communities in which they lived as a minority. In recent years, antisemitism has surged in the United States and Europe, after having declined in the decades following the Holocaust. We will attempt to understand this troubling phenomenon by examining its history, underlying causes, and contemporary manifestations. The first part of the course studies the history of antisemitism from the rise of Christianity to the Holocaust. We will look at how hostility to Judaism emerged in early Christianity; why antisemitism persisted in modern societies based on equality and individual rights; and how Nazi antisemitism led to the near annihilation of the Jewish population in Europe during the Holocaust. We will also trace the origins of stereotypes about Jewish malevolence, power, and greed; pay particular attention to how different ideologies have been used to justify antisemitism, including traditional religion, western liberalism, Marxism, and pseudo-scientific racism; and consider how Jews have responded to antisemitism both politically and theologically throughout their history. The second part of the course will study contemporary antisemitism with a focus on the United States. We will study the current resurgence of antisemitism both in light of the history of antisemitism and by trying to understand its more immediate causes. We will consider how antisemitism plays a role in the ideology of new right-wing movements, as well as sources of antisemitism on the political left. We will pay particular attention to the connection between the creation of the State of Israel and increasing antisemitism worldwide, and current debates over the relation between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.  

MC 459: Science, Technology, Environment and Public Policy Capstone: Climate Change and Public Policy, Interdepartmental course with Lyman Briggs (3 credits)  

Instructor: Alon Tal  

Meeting times: Tue Thu 12:00-3:00PM *Class ends Oct. 8th, with assignments due by mid-October*

Description: A growing global consensus recognizes that in order to avert an acute climate disaster, the world’s economy must transition to one with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, the International Energy Agency projects that half of the technologies required to reach carbon neutrality have not yet been invented or are not yet operational. Climate change mitigation policies worldwide, therefore, must have two parallel, overarching objectives: accelerated emissions reduction and climate tech development. This course considers the form and content that climate policies should take as well as implementation strategies to mitigate greenhouse ga emissions and accelerate technological innovation to attain net-zero emission targets. The course begins with an evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of different regulatory approaches to technological innovation. The course then considers the international context for conducting domestic climate policies, the evolution and expectations of the United Climate Convention. Subsequently, attention turns to a range of policy interventions that have been employed to pursue climate mitigation objectives and climate tech innovation. These include funding research, monetizing carbon through carbon taxes and emission trading systems, subsidizing climate technology deployment through feed-in tariffs and carbon contracts for differences, technology forcing standards, command and control oversight, green public procurement policies and choice architecture “nudges”. Specific examples of global and national regulatory dynamics that affect technology development are discussed in areas such as renewable energy, energy storage, solid waste reduction, food production, cement and steel production, hydrogen, autonomous/ electric vehicles, shipping, and the fashion industry. Relevant experiences of different countries will be presented, especially from Israel, the US and from Denmark. The course is also designed to be a capstone, where students will break into groups to prepare a report for an Israeli NGO as part comparative regulatory analysis. The course material for the final quiz will be based on instructor’s lectures, required readings, and guest presentations.  

MC 492 Sec. 004: Senior Seminar in International Relations (5 credits)  

Focus: Peacemaking and Peacebuilding  

Instructor: Yael Aronoff  

Meeting times: Tue Thu 12:40-2:30PM  

Description: This seminar will concentrate on peacebuilding and peacemaking efforts to resolve long-standing conflicts. Various factors, including grassroots peacebuilding organizations and movements, leaders, peace negotiations and frameworks, and mediation and facilitation by regional and international actors will be examined. In addition, public opinion and the influence of domestic politics on different actors will be examined. The primary case study will be past efforts to negotiate Israeli-Palestinian peace, grassroots peacebuilding efforts, and prospects for future efforts. This course has three main objectives: 1) To hone your research, analytical, and writing skills by conducting a substantial research project of your own. 2) To explore the varied factors that can contribute to making progress in efforts to resolve long-standing conflicts through peacebuilding and peacemaking efforts. 3) To improve your critical thinking, reading, and speaking abilities. Particular attention will be given to developing argumentation skills, both orally and in writing, through written assignments, oral presentations, and in class discussions and simulations.  

MC 498 Sec. 001: Senior Seminar in Social Relations (5 credits)  

Focus: The Holocaust in American Memory  

Instructor: Amy Simon  

Meeting times: Mon Wed 12:40-2:30PM  

Description: American social relations and policy. Analysis of the Holocaust and comparative genocides. During the course of this class, we will discuss questions such as: How does the Holocaust live on in American remembrance? Why should the United States be so invested in the memory of a European genocide? What kinds of stories do Americans tell about the Holocaust?   

REL 150: Exploring Biblical Literature (3 credits)  

Instructor: B. Grafius

Meeting times: Mon Wed Thu 1:00-2:20PM  

Description: A critical survey of biblical texts, including the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and writings found in the Apocrypha/Deuterocanon, that combines historical and literary analysis with attention to the ancient religious context of this literature.  

REL 412: Jewish Mysticism (3 credits)  

Instructor: Morgan Shipley   

Meeting times: Mon Wed 8:30-9:50AM  

Description: Introduction to the doctrines, ritual practices, and history of Jewish mysticism  

UGS 201 Sec. 740: Historical and Contemporary Antisemitism (1 credit)  

Instructor: Morgan Shipley   

Meeting times: Asynchronous, 7 weeks only

Description: online asynchronous, featuring short video lectures by Professor Yael Aronoff, Professor Kirsten Fermaglich, Professor Amy Simon, and Professor Laura Yares. This seminar will afford students from across the university the opportunity to learn about the historical roots and contexts of contemporary antisemitism, to define antisemitism, and to identify key tropes in the history of antisemitism. Antisemitism is at historic levels in the United States, and some students have also experienced it on our campus. This course will help students recognize antisemitism and understand its historical roots. While this course is ordinarily restricted to first- and second-year students, requests for overrides for juniors and seniors may be granted by emailing lucasaly@msu.edu and robil233@msu.edu.