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Jewish Life in Small Central Illinois Communities

JS 495
course flyer for JS 495

Treasure Found!! Those of you who have always loved going through your grandparents' old drawers, or the boxes up in the attic - join me in this adventure! We will be going through the archive of the Jewish communities of the central mid-west. This semester we will become detectives, and start sifting through, cataloging and sorting documents that have never been worked on and in which the Jewish history of these communities is documented. We will discuss microhistory as a method and a point of view, .challenge our understanding of what history is and how it can be expanded. Students will get a glimpse into Jewish lives in decades and centuries past.