The Story of the Jews

Session Four:

Over the Rainbow

Introduction: We begin this course with reading chapters 7-12 in Volume 4 of The Story of the Jews followed by viewing episode four of the accompanying film by the same name - "Over the Rainbow."

After having completed the readings for this session and reviewed the accompanying video you may choose - on a purely optional basis - to answer the study questions and submit them at etwimber@hotmail.com or to contact Dr. Wimberley by phone or email to request a time for dialogue about what you have learned. You may do so by phone or dialogue via Skype or Facetime. Dr. Wimberley's phone number is 239.405.4164. We may also convene group meetings of the class using the Zoom application on our computers. You can enroll in this course by emailing etwimber@hotmail.com or by texting Dr. Wimberley at 239.405.4164.

Readings: Schama, Simon (2017) The Story of the Jews (Volume 2). Chapters 7-12; Israel ben Eliezer (Baal Shem Tov); Pillar of Prayer: Guidance in Contemplative Prayer, Sacred Study, and the Spiritual Life, from the Baal Shem Tov and His Circle; Hassidism as a Modern Movement; Kabbalah - Definition; Autoemancipation (by Leon Pinsker);

Video: The Story of the Jews: Over the Rainbow

Simon Schama plunges viewers into the lost world of the shtetl, the Jewish towns and villages sewn across the hinterlands of Eastern Europe, which became the seedbed of a uniquely Jewish culture. Shtetl culture would make its mark on the modern world, from the revolutionary politics of the Soviet Union to the mass culture of Tin Pan Alley and Hollywood. It was also the birthplaces of Hasidism, the most visible, pr and, arguably, most misunderstood expression of Jewish faith and fervor. This episode travels from the forests of Lithuania, where Schama’s own family logged wood and fought wolves, to the boulevards of Odessa, where shtetl kids argued the merits of revolutionary socialism over Zionism. From the Ukrainian city of Uman, where today thousands of the Hasidim chant and sing over the tomb of the wonder-working Rabbi Nachman, to the streets of Manhattan’s lower east side, where the sons of shtetl immigrants wrote the American songbook. The program returns, with grim inevitability, to Eastern Europe in 1940, where the genocidal mechanisms of the “final solution” were beginning to grind the shtetl world into dust and ash.

Study Questions:

1. In what ways did the concept of the "shtetl" find its way into American Jewish culture (particularly in New York City).
2. What happened to the Jews living on the "Pale"?
3. What uniquely Jewish values were to be found in the music and film arts of the Jews during the early twentieth century?
4. As American Jews prospered in their new homeland in the 1940's what was happening to European Jews?
5. What would be the ultimate impact of Hitler's efforts to impose a "final solution" upon the Jews.