Is Judaism a faith, a legal tradition, a nation, or a civilization? And what happens when that question meets modern politics? This course explores modern Jewish political thought and intellectual history, taking the question of Zionism, and the rich tradition of Jewish argument it provoked, as our conceptual and historical guide. Following an analytical survey of modern Jewish intellectual and sociopolitical history, we will examine how influential figures constructed "Judaism" in their political thought, among them Theodor Herzl, Hermann Cohen, Rav Kook, David Ben-Gurion, and a range of contemporary thinkers, Jewish and non-Jewish, from across the political spectrum. Do the Jews constitute a nation like all other nations, a religious community, or a people with a distinctive vocation? What is at stake, politically and theologically, when concepts of state, land, and peoplehood converge, and when they are held apart? We will wrestle with these thinkers and their ideas critically and charitably, in a collegial environment characterized first and foremost by mutual respect.
