Who are the Jewish people? · Grades K–5, in two tracks
Grade band
Grades K–5 (a K–2 track and a 3–5 track)
Lesson length
35–40 minutes
Format
K–2: read-aloud + class mosaic · 3–5: read-aloud + invent-a-word
Materials
The picture book for your track · a whole pomegranate (or an orange), with a knife and a plate for the teacher only (K–2) · Six Faces sheet, printed or projected (K–2) · My Piece of the Picture tile (K–2) · A Language Wakes Up handout (3–5) · crayons · scissors · chart paper for the class outline (K–2)
Prerequisites
None. This is the first theme; it can open the year.
World cultures · Identity & community · NY K.2, 1.1, 2.2 (K–2); 3.4, 3.5 (3–5) · NCSS Theme 1 (Culture), Theme 4 (Individual Development & Identity) · C3 D2.Geo.2.K-2, D2.His.3.K-2 and their 3–5 parallels · Common Core RL.K–5.1–2, SL.K–5.1
Public school
Taught as culture and history, the way a class studies any people. Describe, don’t instruct; no one is asked to believe or practice anything.
Why this lesson, for the teacher
Children already know what a group is. They belong to a family, a class, a team, a town. This lesson adds one idea to what they already know: the Jewish people are a people, a very old and very large extended family with a shared story, a homeland, a language, and customs that look different in different places. That is the idea most adults were never taught. Many children, and many grown-ups, picture Judaism only as a religion, or picture Jewish people as one kind of face. A Jewish child in Ethiopia, a Jewish child in Shanghai, and a Jewish child in Brooklyn look different, eat differently, and speak different languages at home, and all three belong to the same people. For the students, the lesson is simply: here is one people with many faces, and here is what holds them together.
The idea a child should leave with: A people is held together by a shared story, not by looking alike. Many pieces, one picture.
What this lesson teaches
Students learn that Jewish people live all over the world, look and cook and speak in many different ways, and still belong to one people, because they share a story that goes back thousands of years, a homeland, a language, and holidays. By the end, a student can say what a people is and name one way Jewish families in different countries are connected.
Core understandings
Jewish people are a people: a very old, very large extended family, not only a religion.
They live in many countries and come in many colors and many kinds of family, yet share a story, a homeland (Israel), a language (Hebrew), and holidays.
A people can change a great deal over time and still be itself, the way a person grows and is still the same person.
Children already belong to groups. Belonging is something a child understands before any new word is introduced.
Before you teach: two picture books
K–2:Two New Years by Richard Ho, illustrated by Lynn Scurfield (Chronicle Books, 2023; Sydney Taylor Book Award winner, 2024). One family celebrates both Rosh Hashanah and Lunar New Year. It shows a Jewish family that is also Chinese, which is the whole point: a people with many faces.
3–5:The Language of Angels: A Story About the Reinvention of Hebrew by Richard Michelson, illustrated by Karla Gudeon (Charlesbridge, 2017; Sydney Taylor Book Award winner, 2018). In the 1880s a father decides his son will grow up speaking only Hebrew, which almost no child had done for many centuries, and invents the words the old language never had.
Both are in many public and school libraries. If your library does not have the book for your track, A Moon for Moe and Mo (Jane Breskin Zalben) serves K–2, and Gittel's Journey (Lesléa Newman) or The Key from Spain (Debbie Levy) serves 3–5. With a substitute, read the "true story" box on the handout aloud before Step 3; it carries the bicycle story the game depends on.
Suggested lesson flow
K–2 track 35 minutes
1 · What is inside? (5 min)
Hold up a whole pomegranate. Do not open it. (Pomegranates are in most US stores from September to January. Out of season, an orange works: one peel, many segments.)
"Don't tell me what it is. Tell me what you think is inside."
Take the guesses: seeds, juice, "a million little balls." Do not answer. "We'll find out at the end. First, a story about a family that celebrates two new years."
2 · Read aloud: Two New Years (12 min)
Read the book straight through. Then ask: "How many new years did this family celebrate? Why two?" Land the idea in one sentence: this family is Jewish and Chinese. Jewish families come in many colors and from many countries.
3 · Six faces (5 min)
Use the Six Faces sheet (print it, or project it). Show one face at a time. For each: "Where is this family? What do you notice?" Let children point at what they see: the clothes, the classroom, the desert, the stone wall. Name the place after they guess.
"These six families have never met. I think there are four ways they are the same. Help me find them."
Write the four on chart paper as the children reach them, with hints where needed: a story, holidays, a language, a homeland. Those four words are the lesson. Leave the sheet up for the rest of the period.
4 · My piece of the picture (10 min)
Start with belonging, one minute, modeled first: "I belong to my family. I belong to this class. I belong to this town. What do you belong to?" Take a handful. Then hand out the My Piece of the Picture tile. Each child draws something their own family does or eats, then cuts out the tile. Kindergarten scissors are slow, so pre-cut the tiles, or let children draw while a helper cuts; first and second graders can cut their own. Collect the tiles and fit them together on the wall inside one big outline drawn on chart paper. A pomegranate outline is the natural shape (the Weitzman Museum's peoplehood lesson builds its mosaic inside a pomegranate too); a circle works as well. Leave the wall picture for Step 5.
5 · Close (3 min)
Bring the pomegranate back. Cut it in half over a plate and hold up one half so the class can see the seeds.
"One fruit. One skin. Now look: hundreds of seeds, every one its own piece. Our wall is the same. Many pieces, one picture. That is what a people is."
One true sentence to end on: "Many Jewish families eat pomegranate on Rosh Hashanah, the new year in our book." The fruit is a prop, not a snack. Nobody has to eat it.
3–5 track 40 minutes
1 · Name it (5 min)
Draw a bicycle on the board. No introduction.
"Pretend nobody on Earth has ever said the word bicycle. You are the first person who needs one. You have thirty seconds. Name it."
Pairs, thirty seconds. Take six names aloud and write them on the board beside the drawing. Then the turn: "Here is the catch. A real father, in the 1880s, had to do exactly this, for real, for his son. Let's find out what he did." Keep the six names up. The class comes back to them in Step 3.
2 · Read aloud: The Language of Angels (12 min)
Before reading, one fact the book assumes: for many centuries Hebrew stayed alive as a language of reading, writing, and prayer, and Jews from different countries sometimes used it to talk to each other, but almost no child grew up speaking it at home. What was new in the 1880s was a child who grew up speaking it as his first language. Name the word people here too: a group so old and so large that it has its own story, its own language, and a place it comes from. Read the book. If the book reaches a moment where the father needs a word that does not exist yet, stop there and let the class guess what he did. If it does not, finish the book and turn to the bicycle on the board.
3 · Invent a word (10 min)
Hand out A Language Wakes Up. The real answer is on it: the Hebrew word for bicycle, ofanayim, was built from ofan, an ancient word for "wheel," made into a pair. Compare it with the six names on the board. Someone usually came close. Students invent their own words for three modern objects the same way, by joining two old ideas, and say them aloud to a partner. This is the game children remember.
4 · What makes a people? (8 min)
Build the answer on the board from what the book showed. A shared story (thousands of years of it). A homeland (the land of Israel, which Jewish families far away kept in their prayers and stories). A language (Hebrew, which a whole people kept in writing until a child spoke it again). Holidays and customs. Then the turn: the same people lived in Yemen, Poland, Ethiopia, Spain, and China, and looked and cooked and dressed like their neighbors. One people, many faces.
5 · Close (5 min)
Each student completes the last line of the handout: "I am part of ______. What connects us is ______." A few read theirs aloud. That sentence is the assessment. Then one more turn, with the handouts face down:
"You invented backpack today. Hebrew did too. The real word is tik gav: tik, bag, plus gav, back. Bag-back. You did what a whole language did."
Notes on teaching this well
Say "people," not only "religion." A child can be Jewish without being religious, the way a child can be Irish without speaking Irish. Keeping the word people in front of the class is the single most useful move in the lesson.
Let the faces do the work. The six photographs on the Six Faces sheet teach the "many faces" half of the title without a word from you. Show them one at a time: six at once is a poster, one at a time is a question.
The pomegranate is a prop. It is shown, opened, and described, never served. Nobody has to eat it. Check allergies before any fruit comes into the room, and if a child is allergic, a photograph of a cut pomegranate does the same work. The knife stays in your hands.
Describe, don't instruct. You are describing what a people is and what its members share, not teaching what they believe. Holidays and the homeland are named as facts about the group, the way a class names Diwali or Mexico when it studies other communities.
Keep the universal close. The children in the room belong to peoples of their own. The mosaic and the closing sentence are about them as much as about anyone.
Read-alouds:Yaffa and Fatima: Shalom, Salaam (Kar-Ben, 2017) and A Moon for Moe and Mo for K–2; Gittel's Journey and The Key from Spain for 3–5. The Always Prayer Shawl (Sheldon Oberman, 1994) tells the "changes and stays itself" idea beautifully; it is set around a prayer shawl, so preview it for your setting.
At home. This lesson works at a kitchen table with one child. Skip the parts built for a whole room and do the part you would enjoy together; the words-to-know card ends with a note for families.
Tell us how it went. One sentence to education@makorproject.org about what worked and what did not helps the next teacher who opens this lesson.
Sources & further reading (for the teacher)
Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History · "Jewish Peoplehood" lesson (written for older students). Its sentence stems, its "what connects them?" photo discussion, and its pomegranate mosaic are the pieces this lesson scales down. Its one-line answer to the title question: the Jewish people are "a joinable extended family, connected by a shared history, ancestral homeland, and central texts, yet are remarkably diverse."
Milog Hebrew dictionary · tik gav: the entry behind the 3–5 closing turn. A bag carried on the back by its straps, also called tarmil gav; tik is a bag, gav is the back.
K–5 Lesson