Jeffrey Rehmar
International Studies 501
Dr. Amy Horowitz
June 1st, 2009
Class Evaluation
Dr. Horowitz’s Living Jerusalem 2009 class has been of my favorite classes that I have taken during my college career. It was something new to learn about the Middle East in this unique form. From the distinctive class structure, the readings, videoconferences, and more it has been an extraordinary ten weeks. We dipped right into the conflict by studying the history. At first I didn’t know why we were going back so far in history with Karen Armstrong’s book Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths. However, I as my fellow classmates realize the importance of the history. I can say that without a doubt in my mind Jews, Christians, and Muslims all have strong but equal claims to the disputed land. At first I didn’t know what to title my blog, but I am glad I chose The Disputed Land and stick by it today.
From the ten weeks in class we covered a lot of material. We studied Jerusalem, Israel/Palestine, and the entire Middle East in culture, food, language, music, history as well as several additional aspects. From our readings and videoconferences with scholars: Menachem Klein, Salim Tamari, Suad Amiry, and Galit Hasan-Rokem, to our face to face meeting with Mershon Center Director, Dr. Richard Herrmann. The culmination of the class was the videoconference in Hagerty Hall with Karen Armstrong. I will try to briefly cover as many components of the courts and my opinions on them, and conclude with recommendations for future Living Jerusalem classes.
The class structure of this class was different that your normal undergraduate class at Ohio State. The shuffling between the Jennings classroom to the two different videoconference rooms in Hagerty was really not that hard to get used to. Before this class I didn’t really know what blogging was. Now I have to say I am sort of an expert at it. The blogging website that we used (Blooger.com) was easy to use, convenient, and served the purpose of the class well. It was excellent to have someone with an experienced person in both blogging and the content of the course, Abdul Rahman was a great asset in my mind. From being such a fan of this Living Jerusalem class, I was often disappointed that we only met two days a week. However, I think this is best as we often went overtime in many of our class discussions and videoconferences. The small class size of fourteen made interaction with Dr. Horowitz more frequent. I have always been a big proponent on class size, and this has been one of the smallest classes I’ve ever had in any level of schooling. I feel like the class came together became very close, and a lot of friendships of the future were born. I mean co-Resident Advisors in Morrison Tower’s International House Learning Community were found with Evan and Anisa!
I knew that this class would be very reading intensive being a five-hundred level International Studies. However, I enjoyed the majority of our readings and it definitely enhanced our sole two weekly meetings per week. With the inclusion of the readings we actually went quite in depth for the ten-week quarter. However, I am certaint that the change to semesters will positively enhance the class. As one of my other International Studies professors told us, “I come from a mindset that [current college students] do not read enough.” I full heartedly agree with this statement.
In class we read works from a multitude of different workers. One of my favorites was Professor Menachem Klein. He was knowledgeable, firm, and to the point. However, I as well as I believe what was a majority of the class saw his bias towards Israel. I believe he as a scholar on the Middle East should do his best to take the middle ground. Salim Tamari brought an interesting twist to our study with his Popular Music, and Early Modernity in Jerusalem. However, I am not sure the relevance and Mr. Tamari is not a speaker that stands out to me. In Suad Amiry’s Researching East Jerusalem he included “A Talmudic proverb ancient about Jerusalem says: “When god created the world, he created ten portions of beauty. He gave nine to Jerusalem and one to the rest of the world,” (Amiry 28). This is a quote that only got more powerful as the class went on.
It was unfortunate that we were unable to successfully videoconference with Galit Hasan-Rokem. Her writings were rather short but strong and meaningful! She was very helpful in responding to my emails. One of the most memorable days from this class was the visit by Richard Hermann. He not only brought an unbiased political science point of view on the situation but gave great personal views on the conflict from his own personal experience. I would love for him to come more than once per quarter, because his knowledge is so valuable to the students. I believe the idea of one visit in week two and a follow up visit in week eight would be of great use.
In wrapping up, I cannot go on to my recommendations for the future before mentioning world renowned author, Karen Armstrong. I would like to first of all send out a big congratulations to all of those involved in getting Ms. Armstrong to meet with our class. To be honest her book was boring, but necessary. It was redundant at times but the history of Jerusalem is essential for a scholarly understanding of the Middle East today. Karen Armstrong was suprisingly personable, thoughtful, and showed genuine interest in our questions during the videoconference. I would first recommend keeping the Armstrong book for future classes to read during the first half of the quarter. Also, I would put in a lot of work to make the Armstrong videoconference annual, the Hermann class presentation twice quarterly, and other videoconferences worked into the class as often as possible. The second half of the class was the most enjoyable in my opinion due to the videoconferences. Videoconferencing, blogging, and so much more were brand new experiences for me from Living Jerusalem 2009. I found myself always calling my dad directly after videoconferences in Hagerty Hall, while walking across the South Oval on my way bragging about what overseas scholar I have conversed with that day. Jerusalem will be ongoing interest for me and for the entire class. It is a special place, and I look forward to see what its future entails.
Works Cited
Amiry, Suad. "Researching East Jerusalem." (n.d.): 28.
