Global Core Courses in Jewish Studies

The Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies offers a growing selection of courses that fulfill Columbia’s Global Core requirement, engaging students with Jewish history, culture, and society in a global context. We invite students to explore these offerings below as part of their academic experience.

For a complete list of all IIJS courses, please visit our course bulletin here.

IIJS Global Core Course Offerings Fall 2026

Topics in Israeli Cinema | JWST GU4145
Stuart Weinstock

Israel has a unique and constantly-evolving national cinema, the product of its diverse immigrant population, influences from neighboring nations, and dramatic national history. Beginning with artistic influences from abroad and culminating with native self-examinations, this course will provide a survey of Israeli film history, recurring foci of Israeli cinema, and introductions to influential filmmakers from early director and impresario Menahem Golan to Orthodox writer/director Rama Burshtein.

Resilience and Resistance: North African Jews during the Colonial Period | JWST GU4160
Gabriel Abensour

This seminar examines the multifaceted experiences of Jewish communities in the Maghreb during the colonial period, spanning from the early 19th century through the independence movements of the mid-20th century. It explores how these communities navigated the social, political, and cultural landscape of colonial rule, focusing on key themes that shaped the Jewish experience in colonial North Africa.

Zionism in History: Controversies Local and Global | JWST GU4602
Avi Shilon

From its very inception on the stage of history, the Zionist idea has been a catalyst for intense controversy, both within the Zionist movement and the Jewish people, as well as among external critics. This course seeks to trace the major debates and controversies that have shaped Zionism from its founding to the present day, as they have manifested in the State of Israel.

Jewish Music in New York | MUSI UN2030
Tina Frühauf

Prerequisites: Music Humanities (Columbia University) or An Introduction to Music (Barnard).

This course explores the variety of ways people have used music to describe, inscribe, symbolize, and editorialize their Jewish experience. Along these lines, it draws upon genres of art music, popular music, and non-Western traditions, as well as practices that synthesize various styles and genres, from hazzanut to hiphop.

Additional Global Core Courses

SPJS UN3303 Jewish Literature in Translation in Medieval Iberia
Isabelle Levy

CLSL GU4012 Holocaust Literature: Critical Thinking
Ofer Dynes

JWST GU4159 Antisemitism and Resistance in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa
Benjamin Berman-Gladstone

JWST GU4158 Zionist Thought: Center and Periphery
Benjamin Berman-Gladstone

JWST GU4601 History of Mizrahi Jews
Avi Shilon