Hebrew and Jewish Studies

This subject covers the basic word formation and syntax of Modern Hebrew, as well as reading, writing and simple conversation. Students should also gain an historical perspective of the language. Students who complete the subject should have a sufficient grasp of Modern Hebrew grammar, vocabulary and syntax to be able to read simpler modern texts. and an ability to conduct basic conversation and write short assignments.

In this subject, students revise the basic elements covered in semester one, continue with word formation, reading, writing and simple conversation. Students are introduced to more complex grammar and syntax as well as an historical perspective of the language. On completion, students should have a sufficient grasp of modern Hebrew grammar, vocabulary and syntax to be able to read simpler modern texts, and an ability to conduct basic conversation and write short assignments.

In this subject students extend their competencies in writing, reading, speaking and listening by engaging with authentic texts with a particular focus on developing the skills of reading, writing and conversing in Hebrew, with emphasis on grammatical structures and expansion of vocabulary. Students will learn the skills to deal with the complexity of authentic texts and will engage in more advanced work on speaking and creative writing, through a reading of contemporary newspapers, magazines, short stories and poetry that will enable them to build their vocabulary.

In this subject, students further extend their competencies in writing, reading, speaking and listening by engaging with authentic texts and situations. The focus is on consolidating and developing the skills of reading, writing, aural comprehension and conversing in Hebrew, with emphasis on grammatical structures and expansion of vocabulary. Students encounter and deal with a wide selection of texts and genres such as opinion pieces, popular songs, poetry, interviews and films and such engagement proffers students with the impetus and inspiration for personal expression of a moderate level of sophistication. The acquisition of advanced linguistic structures enables students to begin to express with more complexity their own experiences, wishes and views. The subjects involves features advanced work on speaking and creative writing through reading of contemporary newspaper articles, magazines, short stories, poetry, and film, and enables students to enhance and extend their vocabulary. Students engage and explore contemporary historical and social topics and themes in Israeli and Jewish culture.

This subject focuses on advanced modern literary texts, including study of contemporary Hebrew writers in prose and poetry, modern conversational idiom, and newspaper and academic articles. Students further extend their competencies in writing, reading, speaking and listening by engaging with authentic texts and situations. In this subject, Students will engage with authentic texts that deal with past and present themes of increasing complexity and that are of significance to Israeli and Jewish Culture. Students also acquire advanced linguistic structures that allow them to express with greater complexity their own experiences, aspirations and views.

This subject focuses on advanced modern literary texts, including study of contemporary Hebrew writers in prose and poetry, modern conversational idiom, and newspaper and academic articles. Students further extend their competencies in writing, reading, speaking and listening by engaging with authentic texts and situations. In this subject, Students will engage with authentic texts that deal with past and present themes of increasing complexity and that are of significance to Israeli and Jewish Culture. Students also acquire advanced linguistic structures that allow them to express with greater complexity their own experiences, aspirations and views. On completion of the subject students should have attained an understanding of advanced and academic articles and essays and a moderate level of complexity in speaking, aural comprehension, reading and writing of Hebrew.

This capstone subject offers students majoring in Hebrew and Jewish Studies the opportunity to extend and deepen their knowledge of the topic, sharpen their critical faculties in relation to source material and secondary literature, and acquire substantial skills in planning and executing a research project. Throughout this subject, students will utilise their knowledge of Jewish and Hebrew literature and language to develop evaluative reflections on the significant contributions of Jewish society, culture, philosophy, literature, language, history, and the arts. It is only available to students taking the Hebrew and Jewish Studies major.

This subject focuses on consolidating and developing the skills of reading, writing, listening, aural comprehension and conversing in Hebrew, with emphasis on grammatical structures and expansion of vocabulary. It features advanced work on speaking and creative writing, through a reading of contemporary newspaper articles, magazines, short stories, poetry and film, and enables students to enhance and extend their vocabulary.

In this subject students build on their proficiencies and skills in writing, reading, speaking and listening by engaging with authentic texts and situations, and are equipped with more sophisticated language and intercultural skills to converse about themselves in Hebrew within a broader range of social contexts. Students read a variety of texts such as newspaper and magazine articles, poetry, songs, short stories, films and debates in order to comprehend their complex meanings and write a variety of personal stories. They attain a more sophisticated level of language skills necessary to express their opinion and take part in discussions about culturally and politically significant issues and develop structures and vocabulary that enable them to communicate their ideas and opinions about larger social and cultural themes.

This subject focuses on advanced modern literary texts, including study of contemporary Hebrew writers in prose and poetry, modern conversational idiom and newspaper and academic articles. Students further extend their competencies in writing, reading, speaking and listening by engaging with authentic texts and situations. In this subject, Students will engage with authentic texts that deal with past and present themes and are of increasing complexity and that are of significance to Israeli and Jewish culture, history and politics. Students also acquire advanced linguistic structures that allow them to express with greater complexity their own experiences, aspirations and views.

This subject focuses on advanced modern literary texts, including study of contemporary Hebrew writers in prose and poetry, modern conversational idiom, and newspaper and academic articles. Students further extend their competencies in writing, reading, speaking and listening by engaging with authentic texts and situations. In this subject, students will engage with authentic texts that deal with past and present themes of increasing complexity and that are of significance to Israeli and Jewish Culture. Students also acquire advanced linguistic structures that allow them to express with greater complexity their own experiences, aspirations and views.

This capstone subject offers students majoring in Hebrew and Jewish Studies the opportunity to extend and deepen their knowledge of the topic, sharpen their critical faculties in relation to source material and secondary literature, and acquire substantial skills in planning and executing a research project. Throughout this subject, students will utilise their knowledge of Jewish and Hebrew literature and language to develop evaluative reflections on the significant contributions of Jewish society, culture, philosophy, literature, language, history, and the arts. It is only available to students taking the Hebrew and Jewish Studies major.

This subject focuses on advanced modern literary texts, including study of contemporary Hebrew writers in prose and poetry, modern conversational idiom, and newspaper and academic articles. Students further extend their competencies in writing, reading, speaking and listening by engaging with authentic texts and situations. In this subject, Students will engage with authentic texts that deal with past and present themes of increasing complexity and that are of significance to Israeli and Jewish Culture. Students also acquire advanced linguistic structures that allow them to express with greater complexity their own experiences, aspirations and views.

This subject continues exploring advanced modern literary texts, including study of contemporary Hebrew writers in prose and poetry, modern conversational idiom, and newspaper and academic articles. Students further extend their competencies in writing, reading, speaking and listening by engaging with authentic texts and situations. In this subject, Students will engage with authentic texts that deal with past and present themes of increasing complexity and that are of significance to Israeli and Jewish Culture. Students also acquire advanced linguistic structures that allow them to express with greater complexity their own experiences, aspirations and views.

This subject endeavours to consolidate and broaden students’ Hebrew proficiency in the written and spoken form language and cultivate cultural literacy by engaging with a cross-section of themes pertinent to Hebrew language communities and societies. Through participation in regular conversation practices, the subject aims to further develop students’ ability to communicate in informal settings and deepen students’ competence in employing more formal cadences of modern Hebrew and using more specialised reading and listening skills through engaging with a variety of materials such as newspaper and magazine articles, listening to and watching film and television clips. Emphasis is also placed on furthering students’ proficiency and comprehension of advanced grammar, syntax, sentence structures, and the integration of specialised terminology and idiomatic expressions. Students will also be able to craft more complex texts of different types (such as essays, short stories and reviews) and sharpen their analytical skills in evolving discussions related to contemporary and historical issues. At the end of the subject, students should have improved their written, oral and listening skills.

This subject seeks to build on the skills developed earlier and enables students to advance in their learning of Hebrew language and culture by studying an array of text and discourse forms that enhance the understanding of formal structures and the contemporary varieties of idiomatic and conversational language.  Students will learn advanced language and complex sentence forms through textual analysis, essay writing, oral presentation, the viewing of audio-visual materials and in-class discussion. Academic skills are enhanced through learning how to write scholarly essays in Hebrew and undertake close readings in a variety of genres, including analysing and understanding such materials as short stories, poetry, and film. 

The twentieth century has been labelled the “Age of Genocide”. This subject will provide a detailed examination of the Holocaust, the archetype of modern genocide, as part of a broader global history of genocide and mass violence. The subject includes case studies from Europe, Africa and the Asia Pacific region. It will examine the historical origins and contested nature of the concept of genocide, as well as the contexts, mechanisms and consequences of genocidal violence through different historical experiences across the world. The genocidal context of war, ideologies of genocide, decision-making processes, victims and perpetrators, the spaces of extermination, and the processes of documentation, memorialization, legal prosecution and prevention of genocide will be studied.

As a second level History subject, there is a focus on primary sources and document analysis. Object-based learning activities in tutorials will include working with archival materials. Numerous visual resources will be used in lectures. The subject aims to provide students with knowledge and skills that can be applied to practice through the analysis and prevention of genocide. 

This subject will focus on the second total war of the twentieth century and will explore questions about the causes of armed conflict, the nature of total war, and some of the consequences (social, economic, cultural and political) of total war for modern European and global history. Among the topics we will examine this semester are the following: the situation of Europe and Japan after World War I, the rise of facism in Italy and Germany, interwar diplomacy and its failure to preserve peace, the origins of WWII in Asia and Europe, the barbarism of warfare, the home front experiences in the conditions of total war, the Holocaust, and the legacy of total war.

How should we understand politics in the Middle East and South Asia—two regions known for political events that shape the wider world? This subject uses detailed case studies to explore fundamental questions regarding religion and politics in Muslim-majority as well    as Muslim-minority states. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between Islam and violent resistance (including revolution) as well as electoral politics, constitutionalism, and human rights.

To facilitate discussion, the subject examines primary source materials such as constitutions, manifestos, charters, and first-hand reports that illuminate how states and organizations with a religious orientation articulate their own political views in Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India, with concluding references to transnational links in Europe, East Asia, and Australia.

This subject will examine the Israeli-Palestinian narrative through a multi-disciplinary perspective that will explore the political, social, historical and cultural issues central to this long and intense conflict. The subject will provide a clear chronological and textual foundation for examining the conflict’s origins, evolution, ramifications, as well as the quest for peace. Also examined will be Palestinian and Israeli society in the 20th Century with a focus on the rise and development of Palestinian and Israeli nationalism, including intertwined themes of identity, collective memory, trauma and loss-- themes that bind Palestinians and Israelis together.

This interdisciplinary subject will assess the causes and effects of the wars in the region, the involvement of external powers, the negotiations and agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the impact of the conflict on the lives of the two nations, the issue of settlements within the framework of international law, the phenomenon of terrorism and counter-terrorism and the status of Jerusalem and its holy sites. Evaluating the prospects of resolution, the subject will probe contemporary instances of interfaith dialogue and programs that call for peaceful coexistence. The course will utilise primary and secondary sources, including film and literature. 

This subject will examine and focus on modern Israeli history, beginning with the first decade of Israeli statehood and evaluating the nation-building process, the formation of state institutions and the evolution of a democratic regime. Also discussed will be the disparity that became evident between the Zionist ideal and the difficulties of this realization as long-standing divisions emerged such as the Ashkenazi-Sephardic dispute, ultra-orthodox-secular split and Arab-Israeli tensions.

The subject will also investigate the revisionist, post-Zionist and other critiques that have to come to the fore in Israeli society over the last two decades. It will engage a number of significant Jewish thinkers and their critical and theoretical reflections on present and future perspectives. The readings include a rich and diverse mix of documents: primary sources, scholarly articles, short stories, poetry newspaper and magazine articles, films and music, all marshalled to illustrate crucial events and change in Israeli history. These sources not only demonstrate the complexity and multiplicity of Israeli history, but will also enable students to cultivate their skills at hands-on historical analysis.

This capstone subject offers students majoring in Hebrew and Jewish Studies the opportunity to extend and deepen their knowledge of the topic, sharpen their critical faculties in relation to source material and secondary literature, and acquire substantial skills in planning and executing a research project. Throughout this subject, students will utilise their knowledge of Jewish and Hebrew literature and language to develop evaluative reflections on the significant contributions of Jewish society, culture, philosophy, literature, language, history, and the arts. It is only available to students taking the Hebrew and Jewish Studies major.