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Migration in all its forms has played a major role in shaping Jewish identity throughout history. From the Biblical exodus from Egypt through the beginnings of the diaspora under the Romans to the massive European Jewish immigration to America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to the founding of the state of Israel, the migrations of Jews have also had a major place in Jewish literature. Going all the way back to the Bible, but focusing on the 20th century, this course will explore the ways in which literature and film represent the experience of migration, whether negative (compelled by expulsion or violence); positive (lured by economic or social opportunity); or somewhere in-between. We will examine poetry, plays, prose and film in Yiddish, German, Hebrew, and English (all in translation) on aspects of Jewish migration including the social and political factors motivating migration from the countryside to the shtetl (town) to the city and from Central and Eastern Europe to the Americas, Palestine, and Israel. Issues under discussion will include: adaptation and assimilation; minority rights; what is the relationship of old and new or major and minor languages and literatures?; what is the place of tradition and heritage in a diasporic context? We will also consider the resonances between contemporary debates on migration and historical examples of these issues as they are reflected in literature and film.