A World Shattered and Rebuilt – A Jewish Response to Alan Jacobs
This syllabus examines Alan Jacob’s The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis. Jacobs’ work, which chronicled the efforts of Christian thinkers seeking to pick up the shattered pieces of civilization following the Second World War, leaves one questioning how Jewish civilization, facing an even more devastating outcome, might respond to the very same questions. Through a study of Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, Rav Shlomo Wolbe, Rav Yehuda Amital, Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits, Gershom Scholem, Leo Strauss, and Chaim Grade, this course not only seeks to unpack the crises facing Jewish education and civilization in the second half of the 20th century but formulated a Jewish response to the question: How should Jewish educational institutions respond to and rebuild from the Holocaust?
Adapted from a course taught by Tikvah’s Queen’s College chapter in the spring of 2023.
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A World Shattered and Rebuilt