The Diversity of Jewish Identity | Holocaust Literature Introductory Lesson 3

About This Lesson

The concepts of identity and group membership, as explored in the previous lesson, are essential to any discussion of genocide and other forms of identity-based persecution and violence. In some schools and communities, it might be especially important to introduce and explore Jewish identity before entering into the study of Holocaust literature. Some students may not know anyone who is Jewish, or they might not have had exposure to various components of Jewish identity. Spending some time on the diversity of Jewish culture, faith, values, practices, and lineage honors the inherent dignity of Jewish people and helps to ensure that the Holocaust is not students’ only point of reference or imagery for Jewish life.

Jews have been a target of malicious stereotyping, discrimination, persecution, and violence long before and since the Holocaust. Sharing diverse expressions of contemporary Jewish life can challenge stereotypes held about Jews and reduce students’ susceptibility to antisemitic tropes and false narratives. 

In this lesson, students engage with personal reflections from three Jewish teenagers and young adults in the United States in the twenty-first century as a small example of the variety of ways that Jews think about and express their identities. Students then connect these brief contemporary snapshots to history by engaging with historian Doris Bergen’s depiction of the diversity of Jewish life in Europe before World War II. In a culminating discussion and journal response, students make connections between the past and the present and reflect on the harm that can result from reducing people or groups to one factor of their complex identities.

Guiding Questions

• What are some ways that Jews define their identities?
• How can we describe Jewish life in Europe in the early twentieth century?
• What risks come with defining a group of people by a single story or stereotype?

Learning Objectives

• Explore the complexity of identity in ourselves and others; analyze the many factors that can shape an individual’s identity and sense of belonging.
• Reflect on how real and imagined stories help us understand our own experiences and how others experience the world
• Examine how social identities such as race, ethnicity, gender, and class can influence the experiences of individuals and the outcomes of their choices.

Lesson Plan

Activity 1: Jewish Life in the Contemporary U.S.

Distribute the reading Being Jewish in the United States, and use the Read Aloud teaching strategy to facilitate comprehension. 

Project the following questions and ask students to respond on their own in their journal or with a partner in a Think-Pair-Share before opening a larger class discussion:

• How does this reading connect to, extend, or challenge what you learned about identity earlier in the lesson?
• How do the information and narratives in this reading connect to, extend, or challenge your understanding of what it means to be Jewish? 
• What new questions does this reading raise for you?

Conclude with a journal response to help students reflect on their new understanding or questions. You may use the following questions to guide the reflection:

• How has this activity expanded or challenged your prior understanding of Jewish identity?
• Why is it problematic to reduce Jewish identity—or any identity—to stereotypes or single stories?
• In the last several lessons, you have explored the complexity of identity and belonging, learned about the origin and definition of the term genocide, and read firsthand accounts of how three Jewish teens think about themselves and their Jewish identities. 
  • What connections do you see across these activities and topics? 
  • What are you left thinking about or wondering? 

Activity 2: Explore the Diversity of Jewish Life in Pre-War Europe

Remind students of these two guiding questions for today’s lesson:

• What are some ways that Jews define their identities?
• How can we describe Jewish life in Europe in the early twentieth century?

Explain that the class is now going to apply these questions to history by reading excerpts from a historian’s account of the diversity of Jewish life in Europe in the early twentieth century, before World War II. 

Place students into small groups. Give each student a copy of the handout The Diversity of Jewish Life in Pre-War Europe, and give each group one large piece of chart or poster paper. Have one student from each group divide their paper into quadrants and label each quadrant: Passage 1, Passage 2, Passage 3, and Passage 4. 

Have each group read and discuss the passages on the handout from Doris Bergen’s book War and Genocide, one passage at a time. While they discuss each passage, prompt students to respond to the reflection questions in the corresponding quadrant on their poster paper. Encourage them to include specific details from the text to support their thinking.

Reflection Questions (on Handout):

• What insights does this passage offer about Jewish life in Europe before World War II?
• What questions does this passage raise for you?
• How does this passage connect to the other three passages? What common theme or big idea do you see across all of the passages?
   

Once groups have completed their discussions, have students rotate in their same groups to two other group posters. At each station, they should:

• Read the group’s notes.
• Add a sticky note with a question, connection, or new insight.
• Discuss what they see and how it builds on or challenges their own group’s thinking.
   

After the rotations, facilitate a whole-class discussion using the following questions:

• What is one big idea that you are taking away from this activity about identity or group membership?
• What new ideas or perspectives did you encounter from the passages and/or from another group?
• How do these passages challenge the idea that any group—Jewish or otherwise—can be defined by a single identity or stereotype?
• How do these passages connect to or extend the contemporary voices from the reading in the first activity?

Activity 3: Reflect on Learning

Have students reflect in their journals on their learning from today’s lesson, using one or more of the following questions:

• What risks come with defining a group of people by a single story or stereotype?
• How has your understanding of identity (your own, others’, or in general) changed through this lesson?
• What is one key idea from the Doris Bergen passages that you will carry forward as you engage with a work of Holocaust literature?