Victims, Refugees, Soldiers: East European Jews at War
Tuition: $480 | YIVO members: $375**
Students: $240 (Must register with valid university email address)
This is a live, online course held weekly on Zoom. Enrollment will be capped at about 15 students. All course details (Zoom link, syllabus, handouts, assignments, etc.) will be posted to Canvas. Students will be granted access to the class on Canvas after registering for the class here on the YIVO website. This class will be conducted in English.
Instructor: Aleksandra Jakubczak
Course Description:
This course explores the complex and often precarious experiences of Jews in Eastern Europe, a region marked by centuries of military conflict and shifting political power. From the 17th century, beginning with the violent Khmelnytsky Uprising (referred to in Jewish history as the gzeyres takh vetat), through World War II, where Jews not only suffered as victims but also played active roles in resistance movements, we will examine how Jewish communities navigated these turbulent times. How did Jews find themselves positioned in the midst of these conflicts, and what expectations did the warring factions place on them? What strategies did Jews employ to survive, resist, or align with various powers, and how did their choices reflect broader political and ethnic dynamics?
Through a study of key events and periods, this class will delve into a variety of Jewish experiences, including diplomatic efforts, military service, self-defense, refugeedom, and victimhood. By tracing Jewish responses to violence, we will uncover the nuanced roles they played in the broader historical landscape of Eastern Europe from the 17th century to World War II.
Course Materials:
All course materials will be provided digitally on Canvas.
Aleksandra Jakubczak is a historian specializing in the social and economic history of Eastern European Jewry in the modern period. Since 2022, she has been working as a chief historian at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews and, in 2023, she received her Ph.D. in Jewish History at Columbia University in New York. Her doctoral dissertation, entitled (Sex)Worker, Migrant, Daughter: The Jewish Economics of Sex Work and Mobility, between 1870 and 1939, looked at Jewish women selling and organizing sex to examine how Eastern European Jewish women experienced urbanization, industrialization, and mass migration. Her research has been supported by YIVO, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Israeli Council for Higher Education, American Academy for Jewish Research. In the academic year 2023-2024, she was affiliated with the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University, and in 2024-2026, she will be the Rothschild HaNadiv fellow at the Center for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University of Berlin.
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