What if you could teach a subject that grapples with the most important issues facing Judaism today? What if you could teach a subject that offers students more growth in Jewish literacy per class period than any other? What if you could teach a subject that bridges the gap between your students and Jews throughout space and time? What if you could teach a subject that provides your students with wisdom from the past, gratitude for the present, and inspiration for the future? This is the promise of Jewish History.

The study of Jewish History builds Jewish pride, purpose, and belonging in students. Exploration of our 4,000-year past helps students develop into confident and empowered Jews who live with faith and commitment in the modern world. In principle, many Jewish day school leaders would agree that Jewish History ought to have a primary place in Jewish day school education, but they often find no easy path to develop an appropriate Jewish History program. Textbooks are rare, experienced Jewish History teachers are hard to find, and the dearth of resources makes it impractical to train novice teachers.

Libraries are not only places where books live—they are where manuscripts, documents, maps, recordings, and other items of significance can come alive. The National Library of Israel has an amazing trove of resources with unique national, historic, and cultural significance for the Jewish people—many of which are available on The National Library of Israel for Educators website. The website is filled with curated resources, including lesson plans, digital activities, webinars, materials about the Jewish calendar, Israel and more. In this video, you will be introduced to four key steps of learning with primary sources, from initial observations to finding personal connection and meaning and even creating something new. You will learn how to access these

In almost every era, the Jewish people have struggled with how to best blend Jewish culture with the majority culture. By using this history as a model, my colleagues and I strive to create experiences for our high school students that give them tools to develop their own Jewish identity. We do not teach students what that Jewish identity is, rather we guide them to find their own way as they grow into curious and independent Jewish adults. We focus on exploring the choices and experiences of Jews from the past so that our students see themselves in both the continuity of Jewish life and in the changes

When students whose families come from the Jewish communities of North Africa, Central and East Asia, Latin America, or the Middle East enter our schools, are they able to find and situate themselves within the Jewish history that we teach? Do students from Ashkenazi backgrounds find ways to place their families within these broader, more diverse narratives of Jewish history?

This article follows a year-long process that addressed multiple challenges in teaching Jewish History at Milken Community School, in Los Angeles, California. Within the school’s social science department, Jewish History is addressed in a two-year course (grades 9 and 10) titled World and Jewish History.

The study of history poses a fundamental question: Should we use a particularist lens to fully flesh out one group’s experiences and identities or a universal one which weaves disparate voices, lives, and events to generate a collective narrative? The study of Jewish history offers its own twist on this classic question. Should we focus on Jewish history as a separate and unique academic discipline or should we situate our analysis within the broader context of general history? We propose an approach which navigates the balance between those two poles. Optimizing the balance of considering the unique stories and contextualizing these studies within the broader fabric of the historical narrative can help our students—and their teachers along with

A once bustling Jewish center, Chicago’s West Side is now dotted with churches and apartment buildings, their exteriors still emblazoned with Hebrew inscriptions and Stars of David. A dozen miles west, crowded Jewish cemeteries have fallen into disrepair, their tattered tombstones resting under signs of long-forgotten synagogues. Farther north, in neighborhoods their grandparents left the West Side for, Jewish students sit in middle and high school classrooms, reading American History textbooks that largely gloss over their history.

There are many interesting approaches to teaching and learning Jewish history. The common denominator of many of them is that they take a direct approach—they teach Jewish history as part of the overall curriculum. While this approach is best positioned to cover the broadest historical scope and range, taking advantage of student participation in extra and co-curricular activities can be a productive supplement to help students to broaden their Jewish History knowledge and skills base. Students who participate in extra-curricular programs often have a very high level of motivation to get the most out of these programs. When these students realize that by mastering certain elements of Jewish history they also enhance their strive for excellence in

The primary intention of teaching Jewish History in Jewish day schools is not to make young historians. Of course, there is nothing wrong with teaching, or even enjoying, history for history’s sake. However, teachers of Jewish History usually try to make the Jewish past and the students’ connection to it more meaningful in order to create meaning in the Judaism of our students’ lives today. If we want our students to feel this type of connection from the past to the present (and hopefully into the future), do they need to personally identify with historical events and the people that were a part of them? No, and yes. An Ashkenazi male student can identify with an account of a converso woman being accused of Judaizing during the Inquisition, just as a Sephardi male