End of Semester Reflections

As the semester concludes, I thought it would be fitting to have my last post reflect upon the semester. I was a little skeptical before I took the class because I took a modern Jewish culture and society class last semester and wasn't entirely fond of it; especially due to the "folklore" aspect. I do recall on the first day upon reading the syllabus that I was excited for the media aspect of the class. Being a young male adult, I will admit I am interested in technology, and was excited to see how the Jewish world embraces the 21st century. Overall, I have to say I enjoyed the class. It brought a new perspective to Judaism for me as well as helped develop my critical thinking and out-of-the-box thinking. Some random thoughts:
-In my last Judaism related class, I focused a lot on myself and Judaism. In this class, I learned and shifted the focus to Jewish communities.
-I really enjoyed learning and researching about all the different communities within Judaism, such as Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, as well as the non-traditional groups. it wasn't just helpful to learn briefly about what they believe in, but how they perceive and identify themselves.
-The blog network, especially in the Jewish community is huge!!
-I enjoyed the class session and assignment on music, it was interesting to see the mix of religion and music
-I found doing the blogs very helpful in terms of collecting my thoughts for the class. In four years I have had numerous types of assignments throughout the semester to keep me enganged in the class. I found the blogs to be most effective.