Jewish Studies Courses, 2025-2026
Fall Term
JEWS5020 - Schisms and Divisions in Jewish History
Instructor: Carsten Wilke, Michael L. Miller
CEU credits: 4 (=8 ECTS), Mandatory
This course is a foundational course for Jewish Studies students, approaching Jewish history from the point of view of fragmentation into conflicting groups (parties, sects, factions, movements, denominations, sub-ethnicities) and exploring the dynamics of opposition and coexistence from ancient times to the present. This course has two weekly components: a lecture class presenting a general overview of a period or topic in Jewish history, followed by a seminar class focusing on a case study to further elucidate specific theological, ideological, political and sociological schisms and divisions.
Recent research in Jewish cultural history, following post-modernist or situational perspectives, has voiced strong objections against any essential definition of Jewishness. In Judaism, with its characteristic absence of a central authority, religious and cultural norms indeed presented themselves often as matters of choice inside a grid of internal divisions. Students will learn to problematize generalizations about Jewish identity, but also observe that the different “Judaisms” (a plural introduced by Jacob Neusner) hardly ever produced formal schisms: while strongly resenting and rejecting each other’s convictions, the parties ultimately recognize each other as competing partners in a common collective destiny that would be incomplete without the adversaries.
JEWS5021 - The Holocaust and Its Aftermath
Instructor: Ines Koeltzsch
CEU credits: 2 (=4 ECTS), Elective
For a long time, the historiography of the Holocaust focused on the perpetrators and the Nazi state. The analytical perspectives have fundamentally changed in recent decades and transnational, regional and local approaches with a focus on Jewish and other victim groups and thus on other source genres have brought new knowledge in terms of time and space of the Holocaust. With this shift, early Holocaust scholarship carried out by survivors themselves also came to the fore as well as the question of why it was neglected for so long. In the seminar, we will deal with these newer approaches and topics (e. g. geographies of the Holocaust, Jewish responses, the Holocaust of Sinti and Roma, gender and queer history of the Holocaust, Holocaust literature and testimonies) and methods (e. g. digital humanities, oral history). In addition to regular readings, we will have several excursions to visit places, institutions, researchers and curators in Vienna dealing with the history and memory of the Holocaust.
Winter Term
JEWS5004 - Jews of the Habsburg Lands
Instructor: Michael L. Miller, Susanne Korbel
CEU credits: 2 (=4 ECTS), Mandatory
This course explores the history of Europe’s second largest Jewish community in the modern era, with a focus on the major political, social and cultural trends that shaped Habsburg Jewry from the Josephinian reforms of the late eighteenth century until the dissolution of Austria-Hungary after World War I. The Habsburg Empire encompassed highly diverse lands and populations, and the common political framework allows for an in-depth comparison of Jewish communities in Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary, Galicia, Lower Austria and the other territories ruled by the House of Habsburg. The course will address the enlightened absolutism of Joseph II; the emerging national movements and their impact on Jewish identity; the major religious conflicts and schisms; Jewish cultural creativity in Vienna, Budapest and Prague; and the impact of antisemitism on Jewish political and cultural choices.
JEWS5006 - Jewish Heritage
Instructor: Carsten Wilke
CEU credits: 2 (=4 ECTS), Elective
This special course will be taught from January to March 2026 by faculty from CEU’s Jewish Studies Program and Department of Historical Studies. It offers an opportunity for students and professionals in the field of European heritage to receive academic training in Jewish heritage.
The course will give a broad introduction into the major areas of Jewish heritage, including religious and secular architecture and art, written, oral, and intangible heritage, museums and commemoration sites, current principles and methods of salvaging, documenting, and displaying Jewish heritage, legal ownership and restitution issues, and the place of Jewish heritage in European culture.
The course includes a field trip in Vienna between January 11 to 13, 2026. We will visit Jewish heritage institutions, NGOs and sites in the company of local experts. The course will continue with twelve on-line seminar sessions during the Winter Term. During the term, students will develop a personal project under the supervision of CEU faculty.
JEWS5022 - Antisemitism: Theories, Debates, and Definitions
Instructor: Jan Rybak
CEU credits: 2 (=4 ECTS), Elective
“It is impossible to establish with […] certainty, whether an incident, commonly regarded as antisemitic, really deserves that designation or not.” Dutch Jewish journalist Fritz Bernstein wrote in 1926. He continued, stating that “whenever an occurrence is characterized as antisemitic, someone can be found to deny it that character.” What puzzled Bernstein in the 1920s continues to be hotly debated. Sociologists, historians, theologians, political scientists, psychologists, activists, and many more have long tried to understand the origins and nature of antisemitism, thought about how it could be defined and combatted. This course explores the different theories, approaches, and explanations for antisemitism from the late 19th century to the present. Students will study different perspectives, closely engage with sources and case studies, and familiarize themselves with the main theories, the debates over definitions, and how people have proposed to combat antisemitism.
RSP5068 - Jews and Roma in Comparative Perspective
Instructor: Michael L. Miller, Angela Kóczé (Romani Studies Program)
CEU credits: 2 (=4 ECTS), Elective
This course will compare Jews and Roma in Europe from a variety of perspectives and experiences, focusing on identity and boundary formation, mobilization patterns, as well as larger discourses about authority and authenticity. This course will also examine forms of exclusion and hatred directed at Jews and Roma, focusing on antisemitism and antigypsyism prior to World War II, during the Holocaust and Samudaripen, and in the post-war period. Special attention will be paid to the ways in which Jews and Roma have been categorized as European “others,” especially in the populist politics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and also the ways in which these groups interface with one other, especially with regard to the memory and memorialization of genocide and questions of broader social and political mobilization.
Spring Term
JEWS5019 - Hasidism: Key Questions
Instructor: Marcin Wodziński (University of Wrocław)
CEU credits: 1 (=2 ECTS), Elective
The seminar offers an overview of central research questions in the study of Hasidism: from definition and gender, through spacial and economic characteristics, to ideology and cultural creativity. We will investigate how the changing types of sources used in the study of Hasidism alter the very perception of Hasidism and the methodologies applied. By the critical analysis of several cases and application of new research methods, incl. spatial turn and social network analysis, I hope to demonstrate possible ways out of cognitive stereotypes, and, more generally, towards research creativity in the study of Hasidism and beyond.
JEWS5018 - Jewish Studies Excursion to Prague
Instructor: Carsten Wilke, Michael L. Miller
CEU credits: 1 (=2 ECTS), Elective
This is the Jewish Studies Program’s ‘big field trip’ of the academic year. Together with all JS faculty and colleagues from Charles University in Prague, we will be exploring the fascinating Jewish history and present of the Golden City. This is a three-day excursion and part of a one-credit course for which you will have to register in advance. To get the credits, you will be expected to attend the preparatory sessions, do the assigned reading, and prepare a presentation (to be delivered in Prague or en route). All Jewish Studies students receive financial support for this trip.
Language Instruction
Source languages are offered by the Source Language Teaching Group at CEU. They are open to and free of charge for all CEU students, faculty, and staff. They are subject to the regular registration procedure as part of the university curriculum.
The following courses/credits count towards the Jewish Studies Specialization:
HISU5034 Modern Hebrew Beginner (Source Language) I
Fall term
Instructor: Szonja Komoroczy
CEU credits: 2 (=4 ECTS), Elective
HISU5035 Modern Hebrew Beginner (Source Language) II
Winter term
Instructor: Szonja Komoroczy
CEU credits: 2 (=4 ECTS), Elective
We invite students to take language classes outside of the university if they need it for their research. Several European and international scholarly institutions offer intensive summer courses in Jewish languages. There is funding available for some of them. We strongly encourage students to participate in them.