Explore our wide variety of lesson plans that address topics such as Jewish women’s involvement in the Civil Rights and Labor movements, the developing role of women in Jewish ritual life, Jewish women’s contributions in fields from art to politics, and so much more! Our lesson plans are highly adaptable; we encourage all users to pick and choose the content that they want to use, and to integrate our lessons into their own curricula.
Browse Our Curricula
Filter Our Lesson Plans
How Does My Identity Inform My Actions?
Consider how Jewish experiences and values – in both conscious and unconscious ways – informed the actions of Jews in the Civil Rights Movement, and inform our own allegiances and behaviors.
The American Jewess on Liberation and Freedom
Investigate what it means for American Jews to celebrate Passover and the Fourth of July in the context of religious and national freedom, by reading an editorial from the April 1897 issue of The American Jewess.
Taking Risks, Making Change: Bat Mitzvah and Other Evolving Traditions
The letters from one girl's campaign to have the first Saturday morning Bat Mitzvah in her congregation in 1974 serve as a case study for exploring how we confront controversial issues and make change in our communities.
Jews and the Civil Rights Movement: the Whys and Why Nots
Assume the roles of Southern Jews participating in a Temple board meeting on whether or not to support Northern Jewish activists staging a protest in town.
Civil Disobedience: Freedom Rides
Discover the story of one young Jewish Freedom Rider and Gandhi's principles of civil disobedience, and prepare your own civil disobedience training video.
Moments of Personal Resistance
Examine how individuals take stands against racism and injustice using an essay by Grace Paley and three other short vignettes of individual protest.
Growing tensions II: Affirmative Action
Assess Jewish attitudes towards Affirmative Action as an example of how individuals and communities try to manage competing priorities.
Community Organizing II: Wednesdays in Mississippi
Encounter a little known story of women collaborating across geographic, racial, and religious boundaries through documentary clips of Wednesdays in Mississippi activists.
Power, Privilege, and Responsibility
Analyze how power and privilege shape our relationships and involvement in social justice and activism, using sources including clips from the film Driving Miss Daisy.
Growing tensions I: Black-Jewish Relations
Analyze how underlying rifts in the relationship between African Americans and Jews brought these groups into more overt conflict in the late 1960s, with a focus on the Ocean Hill-Brownsville school crisis and a poetry slam activity.
Exploring My Identity
Explore the complexities of our own identities, and how these identities shape the way we view and act in the world.
Jews and African Americans: Siblings in Oppression?
Explore and interrogate the identification between Jews and African-Americans against the backdrop of the Passover seder.
Jewish clergy in the Civil Rights Movement
Unpack the roles, motivations, and challenges of Southern and Northern rabbis during the Civil Rights Movement.
De facto segregation in the North: Skipwith vs. NYC Board of Education
Investigate the dynamics of segregation in northern schools through a New York City court case ruled on by Judge and Jewish activist Justine Wise Polier.
Moving Inward: bringing liberation movements into the Jewish community
Act out, through tableaux vivants, the ways Jews took what they had learned from the Civil Rights Movement and other liberation movements and used these insights to change the Jewish community.
Wrestling with God and Jewish Tradition
Learn about Jewish immigration and the development of the Jewish community in America through a 1790s letter, originally written in Yiddish by Rebecca Samuel to her parents in Hamburg, Germany, describing her life in Petersburg, Virginia.
Contemporary Labor Issues (Module #4)
Examine modern labor justice issues to allow students to consider their own stance on events like the 2013 collapse of a clothing factory in Bangladesh or the reports of poor working conditions in Chinese factories that produce iPhones and iPads.
Queen Esther and Bella Abzug: Costumes, Leadership, and Identity
Discover how two remarkable Jewish women: The biblical figure, Esther, and the historical figure, Bella Abzug, both fought for justice and liberation by adopting personas that helped them achieve their goals.
Sing a New Song: Jews, Music, and the Civil Rights Movement
Using the letter of a Jewish civil rights activist and several freedom songs, explore how music is able to cross racial and religious boundaries and build community.
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
Use images, artifacts, and audio clips to develop a more nuanced understanding of the March on Washington.
Civil Rights and Social Justice Today
Consider what contemporary civil rights and social justice issues matter to us today, and how Jews and African Americans determine their priorities and responsibilities to effect social change.
"We Have Found You Wanting:" Labor Activism and Communal Responsibility
After the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911, labor rights activist Rose Schneiderman made a famous speech which provided the basis for investigating our communal and individual responsibilities for the well being of others in our midst.
Judaism, Text Study, and Labor (Module #3)
Study several traditional Jewish texts and apply the concepts in these texts to the stories and characters in the game. Think about the lessons Judaism teaches about the responsibilities of workers and employers.
Community Organizing I: Freedom Summer
Explore the role of community organizing, Jewish values, and moral conviction in the lives of young civil rights activists as you imagine yourself a participant in Mississippi Freedom Summer.
Lilith Evolved: Writing Midrash
Interrogate the notion of midrash using "The Coming of Lilith" by theologian Judith Plaskow as an example of how contemporary Jewish feminists have created their own midrashim—retellings of biblical stories—to incorporate women's viewpoints into the traditional texts of Judaism.
Tefillin Barbie: Considering Gender and Ritual Garb
Using the provocative image of "Tefillin Barbie"—created in 2006 by soferet (ritual scribe) Jen Taylor Friedman—examine the relationship between gender, body image, and ritual garb.
Topics
Curriculum
How to cite this page
Jewish Women's Archive. "Lesson Plans." (Viewed on September 21, 2023) <https://jwa.org/teach/lessonplans>.
