American Jews live in accordance with two parallel and sometimes competing legal systems: the American courts and the corpus of Jewish law. Do these two legal structures come into tension for observant American Jews? How do American courts address Jewish legal issues, and how does Jewish law understand the authority of American legal structures and obligations?  This course will examine case studies that highlight these issues—including Eruv litigation, the enforcement of kosher laws, and the autonomy of the Jewish educational system. This discussion will allow us to also think about the future of religious liberty for Jews (and perhaps other law-centered traditional religious groups) in America.