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JS 100 Final Study Guide

The final will consist of the following sections:

10 short answer questions (40 points)

Chronological match-up of events to dates (20 points)
1 essay question (40 points)

Part I: Short Answer (40 points)

The following are topics and themes from which the short answer questions are
constructed. Study the events and the political, social and economic factors that affected
them. Consider their effects on Jews and Jewish society and culture, and the ways in
which Jews responded to them.
The role of Jews in Poland, especially during the 16th-17th centuries in relation to the
Arenda system as employed in the Polish domination of Ukraine.
- Polish encourage jews to settle in eastern Europe, offering a safe haven for expelled
jews. Needed by Noblemen as representatives and for collecting taxes and managing
certain businesses and estates. Living along side, but not within the populous, Jews were
involved in agriculture, crafts, trade, tax farming. The nobility devised a system called the
agricultural arenda, allowing Jews to administer estates and control the means of
production, including serfs, in return for a fixed rent. Consequently, Ukrainian Orthodox
peasants began to see the Jews as the preventatives of the oppressive Catholic Polish
noble. An object of hatred for the rural population, the Jewish leaseholder was often the
first victim of popular revolts. They felt they got special treatment. 1648 Cossaks,
supported by Ukrainian peasants and Crimean Tatars, revolted against the Poles under the
leadership of Bogdan Chmielnicki. Pogroms invasions. Specifically targeted at Polish
Nobility. Chmielnicki Leader. Super violent riots. Jews caught in the Middle, even
killing themselves when offered the option to convert or die.

The events in Seville that led up to and resulted from the great turning point for Spanish
Jewry in 1391
-Jews were pressured to convert as a result of the accusations of a Jewish plot regarding
the plague.
-monks preaching negativity against Jews after plague
-targets of mob hysteria
-killed for religious zeal and property
-those who aren't killed, converted, and were called the conversos, who were still never
trusted and suspected of secretly practicing Judaism.
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The Spanish Inquisition
-investigative body of the church designed to detect and prosecute heresy. Under
suspicion of going back to judaism. Est. 1478, Spain. moves to portugal in 1547.
Confessing = forced confession through strangling and other forms of torture. Church can
confiscate property if convicted.
The economic and social roles of Jews in Western Europe during the early Middle Ages
and the role of Jews in relation to the three estates
-Jews began to arrive in Europe through the east in the 9th century under the invitation of
kings like Charlemagne 9th century. Migrate from Italy. Jews in Italy Enslaved by
Romans.
Jews then established communities in Rhine Land. They became clients of the local
rulers, offering their skills in moneylending and trade while receiving protection from the
King. They were not part of Feudal system. Their legal status depended on a King, a
Baron, or a Bishop. Natural Object of distaste in good times, and object of hatred in bad
times. Marked especially by religious differences.
Active in Businesses and crafts, money lending, economic growth.
Jewish responses to the Emancipation
-assimilate
-reform Judaism. Religious identity should be kept but traditions should be modernized.
Specifically in Germany
-orthodox judaism. Disagreed. Rabbinic law = guiding force in Jewish life
-conservative judaism. Conserve their traditions, allowing change to occur organically.
They were not radical. Western european jews embracing their culture.
Jewish responses to modernity in Eastern Europe
-Hassidism. A movement focused on spirituality and morality in the Jewish tradition
-embracing modernity through the Haskalah Jewish Enlightenment. Modernizing
Judaism through secular education. Modernizing through dress and appearance
embracing new languages
-Musar movement. Spiritualization of religion through ethical education.
-Revolution. Socialism. Bund Jewish labor worker's party. Failed russian revolution
1905. Socialist party doesn't care about religion.
-emigration. Jews to America from EASTERN EUROPE.
The marginalization of Western European Jews in the High Middle Ages
-cities in Europe grow. Craft Guild Protects people and trade. Professional organization
for each speciality. Regulate the conduct of profession. Jews are excluded due to
economic issues. Trade because they weren't tied to a specific group of people, theyre
used to traveling. Knowledge of language. Nomads. Venice gains monopoly in
mediterrenean trade reducing usefulness of european jewry trade.
Black Plague
The First Crusade
Jews as odd, mysterious, foreign, weird practitioners
Inquisition Looking for hereitcs

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Limits on usury charging interest on loans reserved to jews because it was defined by
Christian ethics as exaction
Expulsion of Jews seizure of property
The rise of false messiahs
- David Reubeni 16th cent apocalyptical beliefs. Eschatological beliefs
Jewish Messiah associated with National Restoration.
-Soloman Molocho and Apprentice of David Reuveni. Christian who converted after
circumcising himself. Burned at the stake when he attempted to win the support of the
Holy Roman Emporer, Charles V, after gaining support from Pope Clement VII.
- 17th century. Shabbatai Zevi Claimed to be a messiah in the ottoman empire. Forced to
Convert to Islam or die by Sultan of Ottoman Empire. He converted. Said it was part of
the plan. 1666 Claims Messiah would come back. People were outraged because he
converted.
-Jacob Frank claims himself to be the reincarnation of Shabbata Zevi 18th cent

In the discussion regarding Zionism, the factors deemed necessary for a group to be
identified as a nation.
19th century 1% of Jews support Zionism before the Holocaust
1.Community of People with a Common History
2.Language
3.Aspirations for a common future
Political Zionism cultural zionism
social zionism labor and connection to the land. Speaking hebrew and not yiddish.
The Holocaust: the evolution of Nazi policy toward the Jews
-3 different phases. Developmental. 1. forced emigration. nuremburg laws. 1935 Defined
citizenship by blood. Deassimilation of jews. 2. ghetto-ization. Rounding up all the jews
into one area. 3. invasion of russia. Mass annihilaiton of jews in Europe. Some ways,
improvisational. Final Solution.
The factors in US society, culture, history and politics that enabled the Jews to integrate
and contribute more successfully to their host cultures than during any other period or
location of Jewish history
-jews included within equality
-no badges to define the jew. Benefits of the first amendment
-the GI bill. Loans, education business, oportunities. Participation in WW2

Part II: Chronology (20 points)

A series of dates will be listed. A series of events will be listed in a facing column. You
will be asked to match the events to the dates. Please use the Scheindlin timelines and the
internet a resources to procure the dates for the following events.
Khazar Kingdom takes on Judaism as official religion c. 740
Jews began settling in England 1070
Beginning of First Crusade 10961099
First accusation of the ritual blood libel (Norwhich) 1144
Death of Maimonides 1204
Talmud burned in Paris 1242
Disputation at Barcelona 1263
Expulsion from England 1290 King Edward I Edict of Expulsion
Black Death comes to Europe 1347
Ottomans conquer Constantinople 1453
Expulsion from Spain 1492
Mass Forced conversion of Jews in Portugal 1497
Palestine conquered by Ottoman Turks 1516
Establishment and Rise of the Council of Four Lands 1580
First Jewish community Arrives in New Amsterdam 1654
Excommunication of Baruch Spinoza 1656
Shabbtai Zevi proclaims himself messiah c. 1665
Death of the Baal Shem Tov 1760
French Revolution 1789
Catherine the Great establishes the Pale of Settlement 1791
Hep! Hep! Riots 1819
Damascus Blood Libel 1840
USC first opens its doors 1880
Alexander II assassinated & subsequent pogroms occur 1881
Dreyfus Affair Begins 1894
First Zionist Congress 1897
Kishnev Pogrom 1903
British defeat Ottomans in Palestine 1920
Kristalnacht 1938
Establishment of the State of Israel 1948
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 1943
Peel Commission Proposes the partition of Palestine 1963
Six-Day War 1967
Yom Kippur War 1973

Part III: Essays (40 points)

You will be asked to write on one of these three questions.
1. Jews were materially better off than most other Western Europeans throughout the
Middle Ages. They were also victims of massacres, accused of diabolical crimes
against humanity, scapegoated during times of stress, and were eventually
expelled from Western Europe. Explain.
2. History shows that antipathy toward Jews (and other minorities) rises during
times of societal dislocation and anomie. Explain the general theory and apply to
Jewish history.
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During times of war, heavy corruption in the government, economic turmoil or

other socio-economic events, the involved citizenry and surrounding satellite
communities attempt to find explanations for the unrest. This usually results in the
scapegoating of a marginalized group of people or conspiracy theories which feed
of the general societal attitudes and misconceptions of the time. Jews, who during
the Middle Ages were employed to high administrative and financial positions by
Christian monarchs, yet subjugated to doctrines of social inferiority and
subordination, were an easy target of suspicion and blame for European Christian
communities.
Between the First Crusade and the Black Death, the anti-Muslim fervor of the
Catholic Church and the monarchy spilled over towards the Jews. As a result of
the effort to overcome all non-Christian opposition and to purify Christian
Europe, the Church began to define its policy towards the Jews, effectively
portraying them as another threat to Christendom. Although the Papacy didnt
openly condone forced conversions, they did not restrain the clergy from
spreading accusations of heresy which resulted in the killing of many Jews.
This antipathy toward Jews continued to fester during the High Middle ages after
the First Crusade. In 1147, during the Second Crusade, widespread massacres and
forced baptisms of Jews in Rhineland occurred, similar in magnitude as during the
First Crusade. The Church recommended a policy of segregation, mandating that
Jews were distinguishable garments or special badges in order to prevent sexual
relations between them and non-Jewish women.
The Black Death plague was followed by successive expulsions, burnings at the
stake and collective imprisonments. Even when Jews were reinstated during the
course f reconstruction, it was under humiliating conditions which reduced their
status. The Black Death epidemic resulted in massacres which caused more death
than the plague. In 1348 the Jews of Chillon on Lake Geneva are arrested and
forced to confess to causing the plague to destroy Christianity. For the next few
years, Jews are burned in large numbers.
Expulsions of Jews occurred throughout Europe in France, England and later
Germany between 1450 and 1520. Anti-Semitic sentiments continue to persist in

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Europe to this day. Intolerance grows or subsides depending on the contemporary
perceptions of usury.
3. Define Jewish identity