Holocaust and Human Behavior Six-Week Unit Outline for Educators in Jewish Settings Introduction This outline guides you through a unit using readings, videos, and other resources from Holocaust and Human Behavior. The unit is organized to follow the Facing History Scope and Sequence, and it is designed to be taught in a Jewish setting. As you prepare for and teach this unit, it is important to refer to the book Holocaust and Human Behavior for context necessary to help guide students from lesson to lesson and to answer their questions. We also recommend that you read the Get Started section in the book as you prepare to teach this unit for important suggestions about how to foster a reflective classroom commu- nity and how to support students as they encounter the emotionally challenging history of the Holocaust. Each row in the charts below corresponds roughly to one day of instruction time. Since schedules, class period length, and the needs of individual classes and students vary, teachers will likely need to make adjustments to this plan to best suit their needs and circumstances. The teaching notes accompanying each lesson often provide suggestions for making adjustments to the lesson in order to abbreviate it or go deeper. www.facinghistory.org/outline/hhb-six-week Section A: Individual and Society [~3 days] In this first series of lessons, students begin the unit by examining the societal factors that shape how we think about our own identities and how we define others. After a broad introduction to the concept of identity, these lessons look closely at how one factor, religion, influences the way many people see themselves and others, and the lessons go on to explore the way that stereo- types can distort our perceptions of others. Essential Questions • What factors shape our identities? Which parts do we choose for ourselves, and which are de- termined by others, society, or chance? • In what ways are our identities shaped by the fact that we are Jews? • What dilemmas may arise when others view us differently than we view ourselves? Lesson Name Materials Activity Teaching Notes 1. Reading: Exodus Chapter 3 Students create identity charts for Moshe and See page 5 of Sacred Texts, Modern Questions for .themselves after reading the two readings. notes on analyzing a biblical text ְׁש מ ֹֹות Identity Charting Reading: Jonathan Sacks on Students respond to the following question in Moses’ Identity their journals: How does Moshe’s chart and/or your chart reflect a dual identity? Section A: Individual and Society [~3 Days] Continued Lesson Name Materials Activity Teaching Notes 2. Reading: How It Feels to Be Students read How It Feels to be Colored Me and Identity and Colored Me have a class discussion based on the following questions: Contrasts Image: Glenn Ligon’s Untitled: Four Etchings • Why does Zora Neale Hurston say she was no longer Zora when she disembarked at Jacksonville? What does she mean by that? • Look through the full text and highlight what qualities Hurston relates to being black. What adjectives does she use? What does being black mean for her? Write on the board adjectives (or adjectival phras- es) that students find. Discuss the list. Students then analyze Glenn Ligon’s etchings using the Analyzing Images teaching strategy. Finally, students respond to the following prompt: I feel most Jewish when... Students write their sentences on Post-it Notes (without names) and paste them on a communal chart. Tell students to look for similarities/differences in the answers. Ask students: Do you notice any similarities to Zora Neale Hurston’s thinking? 3. Reading: The Danger of a Students read The Danger of a Single Story, create Excerpt the reading as necessary to make it Stereotypes and Single Story an identity chart for Chimamanda Adichie, and accessible for your class, or show the video from “Single Stories” discuss the “single stories” they have encountered TED.com. in their own lives. Connect the idea of “single stories” to Jewish identity. Ask students: Have you ever experienced your identity as a Jew narrated through a single story? What story is that? Section A: Individual and Society [~3 Days] Continued Lesson Name Materials Activity Teaching Notes 4. Reading: One Identity, Students read two readings about identity and Multiple Identities Multiple Belongings then apply the Text-to-Text, Text-to-Self, Text-to- World teaching strategy to make connections Reading: Kimchee on the Seder Plate with the experiences the texts describe. Focus the discussion on the question: Video: A Jew is Not One Thing What happens when we have to choose one part of our identity over another? Conclude by leading a class discussion in response to the following question: What do the readings from Angela Warnick, Zora Neale Hurston, and Chimamanda Adichie have in common? Watch the video. Ask students: Which voice resonated with you? Why did it resonate? Section B: We & They [~2 days] Students now turn their attention from individual to group identity. These lessons introduce the human tendency to create “in” groups and “out” groups, and they look at the way humans have created such groups throughout history on the basis of race and religion, among other factors. Essential Questions • How have societies distinguished between who can be a member and who must remain an outsider, and why have those distinctions mattered? Lesson Name Materials Activity Teaching Notes 5. Reading: What Do We Do with Students read and discuss (using the connection See the lesson Understanding Universe of Obligation for Differences in a Difference? questions) the two readings, and then they more detailed suggestions. use the handout to illustrate the universe of Belonging Reading: Universe of Background Information: Chapter 2 Introduction Obligation obligation for themselves and a group to which they belong. Handout: Universe of Obligation 6. Reading: Defining Race Students read aloud Defining Race and discuss As students respond to the video, listen to their discus- The Concept Video: Race: The Power of an the connection questions. Then they watch a clip sions and look over their notes to check for understanding of Race Illusion (The Story We Tell) of the video (0:43–9:46) and record something of two important points about race: (1) identifying a they found surprising, something they found person as being of a particular race does not tell us any- interesting, and something they found troubling thing about their physical or intellectual capacities or their to discuss with a partner afterward. character, and (2) definitions of race are not fixed and have changed from place to place and time to time. 7. Reading: Anti-Judaism before Students learn from the reading and video about The video The Ancient Roots of Antisemitism can be Defining the Enlightenment the history of anti-Judaism and how it evolved substituted for the reading Anti-Judaism before the into antisemitism. Then they discuss the con- Enlightenment if desired. If you use the video, you can still Antisemitism Video: Antisemitism from the Enlightenment to World War I nection questions following the reading using follow it up with the reading’s connection questions. the Think, Pair, Share teaching strategy. The connection questions for the reading From Religious Prejudice to Antisemitism can be used to discuss the vid- eo Antisemitism from the Enlightenment to World War I. Background Information: Chapter 2 readings: Religion, Loyalty, and Belonging, Creating the German Nation, Anti- Judaism before the Enlightenment, From Religious Prejudice to Antisemitism. Section C: Life before the War [~2 days] This section offers a glimpse into Jewish life before World War II. It is important for students to understand that before the Holocaust, Jews led rich and varied lives in Europe, struggling with many of the same issues that we struggle with today. This is to ensure that the Holocaust and the Nazi atrocities do not define Jewish identity in Europe in students’ understanding. This unit gives students a broader perspective on the long and rich history of European Jews. It also offers points for reflection on Jewish life in the diaspora before the war and Jewish life today. Essential Questions • How does modernity affect tradition? How is Jewish identity shaped in a changing world? Lesson Name Materials Activity Teaching Notes 8. Reading: Choices in a Read Choices in a Modern World. Ask students the For background information and more teaching The Dilemma of Modern World following question: resources on the history of Jews in Eastern Europe, see the Modern World Pauline Wengeroff and her husband saw themselves as Chapter 2 in The Jews of Poland, “Outsiders in Eastern for Jews “modern.” Do you agree? What does the word mean to Europe.” you? Students may need help understanding the use of the Then have students explore the reading using word modern in this lesson’s readings. Here, moder- the Reader’s Theater teaching strategy. Break up the class nity refers to the society that emerged as a result into four or five groups. Each group will act out for the of the new beliefs, paradigms, and attitudes of the class one of the following scenes from the readings: Enlightenment. Conclude with a discussion of the following quotation from Pauline Wengeroff: “A Jew could renounce everything that had become indispensable to him, or he could choose freedom with its offers of education and career...” Ask students to think about whether Jews today still need to make choices that sacrifice their identity as Jews in order to succeed in the contemporary world. • Hanan decides to see the rabbi and has a conversation with the rabbi • Hanan decides to shave his beard and open a business • The struggle between Pauline and Hanan • Jews are allowed into universities and then, after the events of 1881, forced back into the ghettos • The children leave the tradition Section C: Life before the War [~2 days] Continued Lesson Name Materials Activity Teaching Notes 9.