
In the West, there has always been a complicated relationship between Jews and money. On the one hand, Jews have disproportionately prospered in many places where they were given equal economic and political rights. On the other, though, economic success was often accompanied by more virulent anti-Semitism. In the first part of this course we will examine, both theoretically and empirically, the complex relationship between Jews, capitalism, socialism, nationalism, and anti-Semitism. In the second part of the course we will return to the one aspect of the “cultural capital” that is sometimes said to have helped Jews to prosper: their religious tradition. In this part we will examine traditional Jewish religious teachings on wealth and poverty in their historical contexts both to flesh out some of the issues raised in the first part of the course and, more importantly, to provide a fresh set of intellectual resources for considering our own approach to these issues in modern America.
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