Full Curriculum

Unit IV: Israel in Focus

Lesson 1: Home/Homeland

Warm-Up/Introduction Activity (10 minutes):

• Divide the class into small groups of three to five students each. Give each group a poster board prepared with the outline of a house drawn on it and the word “Home” written on the roof. Provide each group with markers and instruct them to fill their houses with words and phrases that they think of when they think about a “home.” Encourage students to consider the differences between a “house” (which is a physical structure) and a “home” (which connotes more emotion and personal connection). After five minutes, ask each group to present their homes to the class. (Posters should be displayed in the classroom after the lesson for reference in future lessons in this unit.)
• Then, as a class, discuss what words and phrases come to mind when students think about a “land” or “country.” (These words may include geographic terms, government concepts, etc.) Write their ideas on the classroom board. Which overlap with their ideas from the “home” activity?
• Now, ask students to consider the two lists of words and phrases and to define the word “homeland” – a land that is also a home.
• How is calling Israel a “homeland” different from calling it the “country of Israel”?
• How can a land be a home?

Text Discussion (15 minutes):

• Distribute Israel Worksheet 1A: “Home/Homeland: Jewish Texts.” Divide students into four groups (or if you have a large class, eight groups), and assign each group (or two, if eight groups) a different text to read and discuss. After 8-10 minutes, each group should present its text and responses to the class. Allow time for other students to respond and react.
• After discussing all four texts, ask students to discuss similarities and differences in the way the different texts present Israel as a home, as a land, and as a homeland.

Photo Activity (20 minutes):

• Point out to students that before class you created a photo gallery in the room of eleven photographs by Israeli photographer Zion Ozeri. Explain to students that these photographs show Jews from various backgrounds and countries who live in Israel. Give students a few minutes to walk around the gallery and look carefully at the people and the settings captured in the photographs. (If students are not yet familiar with Ozeri, this would be a good time to introduce him and his work briefly.)
• Then, ask each student to return to the photograph he or she found most interesting or compelling and take notes for five minutes, answering the questions on Israel Worksheet 1B: “Home/Homeland: Photography.” (It may be easier for students to take notes if you take the photos down and give them to the students to study at their desks.)
• Students should then be allotted ten minutes to turn their notes on their chosen photographs into first-person accounts – told from the perspectives of their photograph’s subject – about Israel as his or her homeland. Students should try to incorporate as many details as possible from their notes and can write as prose or poetry. Students may finish writing for homework and should share their writings in a future class.

Wrap Up/Review (5 minutes):

Ask students to consider the text and photographs they studied in class today. What connections can they make between specific texts and specific photographs? For example, can students find a photograph that they feel represents the peacefulness and quiet of “To Caesarea”? Can they find a person who appears to be feeling “the heartache of two homelands” described in “Pine”?

Homework:

Students will each take a series of six photographs: three that focus solely on “home” and three that focus on the notion of “homeland.” The photographs can be of any people, places, or objects they choose. Photos should then be printed out and displayed on a large piece of paper or poster board that is divided in half, one side labeled “Home” and the other side labeled “Homeland.” Students should title each photograph and write a two to four sentence explanation about why they feel this photo relates to the assigned category. Students can share their posters in a future class.

Extension Activities:

• The word “homeland” is often used to refer to a person’s country of origin. Students might conduct interviews with Israelis (or people from other countries) and ask them about their views and memories of their homeland.
• Dissect the words of “Hatikvah,” the Israeli national anthem, first written as a poem by Naphtali Herz Imber in 1878. How do the words of “Hatikvah” relate to the idea of Israel as a Jewish homeland? Students can learn about when “Hatikvah” was adopted as the national anthem, as well as the history behind the melody. A great starting point is the “Hatikvah” article on MyJewishLearning.com

If your students have not yet done the Introductory Lesson, we recommend beginning with that lesson before progressing through the lessons in this unit.

PHOTOS

Family Origin: Germany, Kibbutz Dafna, Israel 2007

Often framed as a monolithic society, Israel is in fact made up of the many stories of the immigrating families who have built their lives there, united under the values of a shared heritage and history. The Israeli family has a distinct blend of customs from their original home country and the homeland.

Immigration to Israel is known as aliyah (ascent) and a newcomer as an oleh, one who has risen up, as if having attained new heights arriving in the Biblical, historic, and religious homeland of the Jewish people. The elders in these photographs had reasons for aliyah as diverse as their backgrounds.

The reality for new arrivals to Israel was often more harsh than the promised dream of “a land flowing with milk and honey”. These challenges are a reminder of the complexity of building one nation that includes Jewish people from every corner of the earth.

Jewish settlers founded the Ashkenazi Jewish community in the Early (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (c.1000-1299 CE). In January 1933, some 522,000 Jews lived in Germany. However, following the growth of Nazism and its antisemitic ideology and policies, the Jewish community was severely persecuted. Over half (approximately 304,000) emigrated during the first six years of the Nazi dictatorship, leaving only approximately 214,000 Jews in Germany proper (1937 borders) on the eve of World War II. The remaining community was nearly eradicated in the Holocaust following deportations to the East. By the end of the war between 160,000 and 180,000 German Jews had been killed in the genocide officially sanctioned and executed by Nazi Germany.

After the war the Jewish community started to slowly grow again, fueled primarily by immigration from the former Soviet Union and Israeli expatriates. By the 21st century, the Jewish population of Germany approached 200,000, and Germany had the only growing Jewish community in Europe.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Family Origin: Ethiopia, Rehovot, Israel, 2008

Family Origin: Ethiopia, Rehovot, Israel 2008

Often framed as a monolithic society, Israel is in fact made up of the many stories of the immigrating families who have built their lives there, united under the values of a shared heritage and history. The Israeli family has a distinct blend of customs from their original home country and the homeland.

Immigration to Israel is known as aliyah (ascent) and a newcomer as an oleh, one who has risen up, as if having attained new heights arriving in the Biblical, historic, and religious homeland of the Jewish people. The elders in these photographs had reasons for aliyah as diverse as their backgrounds.

The reality for new arrivals to Israel was often more harsh than the promised dream of “a land flowing with milk and honey”. These challenges are a reminder of the complexity of building one nation that includes Jewish people from every corner of the earth.

Ethiopian Jews, are the Jewish communities located in the area of Aksumite and Ethiopian Empires (Habesha or Abyssinia), currently divided between Amhara and Tigray regions.

Beta Israel lived in North and North-Western Ethiopia, in more than 500 small villages spread over a wide territory, among populations that were Muslim and predominantly Christian. The Beta Israel made renewed contacts with other Jewish communities in the later 20th century. After Halakhic and constitutional discussions, Israeli officials decided on March 14, 1977 that the Israeli Law of Return applied to the Beta Israel. The Israeli government mounted aliyah operations to transport the people to Israel. These activities included Operation Brothers in Sudan between 1979 and 1990 (this includes the major operations Moses and Joshua), and in the 1990s from Addis Ababa (which includes Operation Solomon).

Most of the 119,500 Ethiopian Israelis as of 2009 were born in Israel. 38,500 or 32% of the community had at least one parent born in Ethiopia.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Family Origin: Poland & England, Mevaseret Zion, Israel, 2008

Family Origin: USA, Tel-Aviv, Israel, 2008

Family Origin: USA, Tel Aviv, Israel 2008

Often framed as a monolithic society, Israel is in fact made up of the many stories of the immigrating families who have built their lives there, united under the values of a shared heritage and history. The Israeli family has a distinct blend of customs from their original home country and the homeland.

Immigration to Israel is known as aliyah (ascent) and a newcomer as an oleh, one who has risen up, as if having attained new heights arriving in the Biblical, historic, and religious homeland of the Jewish people. The elders in these photographs had reasons for aliyah as diverse as their backgrounds.

The reality for new arrivals to Israel was often more harsh than the promised dream of “a land flowing with milk and honey”. These challenges are a reminder of the complexity of building one nation, that includes Jewish people from every corner of the earth.

American Jews, also known as Jewish Americans, are American citizens of the Jewish faith or Jewish ethnicity. The Jewish community in the United States is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews and their U.S.-born descendants, making about 90% of the American Jewish population. Minority Jewish ethnic divisions are also represented, including Sephardic Jews, Mizrahi Jews, and a number of converts. The American Jewish community manifests a wide range of Jewish cultural traditions, as well as encompassing the full spectrum of Jewish religious observance.

The United States is home to the largest or second largest (after Israel) Jewish community in the world. In 2012, the American Jewish population was estimated at between 5.5-8 million. This constitutes between 1.7% and 2.6% of the total U.S. population.

Jews have been present, in what is today the United States of America, as early as the 17th century. However, they were small in numbers and almost exclusively Sephardic Jewish immigrants of Spanish and Portuguese ancestry. While denied the ability to vote or hold office in some areas, Sephardic Jews became active in community affairs in the 1790s, after achieving political equality in the five states where they were most numerous. Large scale Jewish immigration, however, did not commence until the 19th century, when, by mid-century, many Ashkenazi Jews had arrived from Germany, migrating to the United States in large numbers due to antisemitic laws and restrictions at home. They primarily became merchants and shop-owners. There were approximately 250,000 Jews in the United States by 1880, many of them being the educated, and largely secular, German Jews – although a minority population of the older Sephardic Jewish families remained influential.

Jewish migration to the United States increased dramatically in the early 1880s, as a result of persecution and economic difficulties in parts of Eastern Europe. Most of these new immigrants were Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews, though most came from the poor rural populations of the Russian Empire and the Pale of Settlement, located in modern-day Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova. During the same period, great numbers of Ashkenazi Jews also arrived also from Galicia, at that time the most impoverished region of Austro-Hungarian Empire with heavy Jewish urban population, driven out mainly by economic reasons. Over 2,000,000 Jews landed between the late 19th century and 1924, when the Immigration Act of 1924 and the National Origins Quota of 1924 restricted immigration. Most settled in the New York metropolitan area, establishing what became one of the world’s largest Jewish communities.

At the beginning of the 20th century, these newly arrived Jews built support networks consisting of many small synagogues and Ashkenazi Jewish Landsmannschaften (German for “Countryman Associations”) for Jews from the same town or village. American Jewish writers of the time urged assimilation and integration into the wider American culture, and Jews quickly became part of American life. 500,000 American Jews (or half of all Jewish males between 18 and 50) fought in World War II, and after the war younger families joined the new trend of suburbanization. There, Jews became increasingly assimilated and demonstrated rising intermarriage. The suburbs facilitated the formation of new centers, as Jewish school enrollment more than doubled between the end of World War II and the mid-1950s, while synagogue affiliation jumped from 20% in 1930 to 60% in 1960; the fastest growth came in Reform and, especially, Conservative congregations. More recent waves of Jewish emigration from Russia and other regions have largely joined the mainstream American Jewish community.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Family Origin: Baku, Azerbaijan, Acco, Israel, 2007

Family Origin: Baku (Azerbaijan), Acco, Israel 2007

Often framed as a monolithic society, Israel is in fact made up of the many stories of the immigrating families who have built their lives there, united under the values of a shared heritage and history. The Israeli family has a distinct blend of customs from their original home country and the homeland.

Immigration to Israel is known as aliyah (ascent) and a newcomer as an oleh, one who has risen up, as if having attained new heights arriving in the Biblical, historic, and religious homeland of the Jewish people. The elders in these photographs had reasons for aliyah as diverse as their backgrounds.

The reality for new arrivals to Israel was often more harsh than the promised dream of “a land flowing with milk and honey”. These challenges are a reminder of the complexity of building one nation that includes Jewish people from every corner of the earth.

Historically Jews in Azerbaijan have been represented by various subgroups, mainly Mountain Jews, Ashkenazi Jews and Georgian Jews. Azerbaijan at one point was or still is home to smaller communities of Krymchaks, Kurdish Jews and Bukharian Jews, as well Gers (converts) and non-Jewish Judaistic groups like Subbotniks. In 2002, the total number of Jewish residents in Azerbaijan was 8,900 people with about 5,500 of them being Mountain Jews. A few more thousand descend from mixed families. In 2010, the total Jewish population in Azerbaijan was 6,400. Jews mainly reside in the cities of Baku, Sumqayit, Quba, Ouz, Goychay and the town of Qirmizi Qesebe, the only town in the world where Mountain Jews constitute the majority.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Family Origin: Dagestan, Hadera, Israel, 2007

Family Origin: Ethiopia & Belarus, Haifa, Israel, 2008

Family Origin: Ethiopia & Belarus, Haifa, Israel 2008

Often framed as a monolithic society, Israel is in fact made up of the many stories of the immigrating families who have built their lives there, united under the values of a shared heritage and history. The Israeli family has a distinct blend of customs from their original home country and the homeland.

Immigration to Israel is known as aliyah (ascent) and a newcomer as an oleh, one who has risen up, as if having attained new heights arriving in the Biblical, historic, and religious homeland of the Jewish people. The elders in these photographs had reasons for aliyah as diverse as their backgrounds.

The reality for new arrivals to Israel was often more harsh than the promised dream of “a land flowing with milk and honey”. These challenges are a reminder of the complexity of building one nation that includes Jewish people from every corner of the earth.

The Jews in Belarus were the third largest ethnic group in the country in the first half of the 20th century. Before World War II, Jews were the third among the ethnic groups in Belarus and comprised more than 40% of the population in cities and towns. The population of cities such as Minsk, Pinsk, Mahiliou, Babrujsk, Viciebsk, and Homiel was more than 50% Jewish. In 1897 there were 724,548 Jews in Belarus, i.e. 13.6% of the total population. Some 800,000 Jews—90% of the Jewish population—were killed in Belarus during the Holocaust. According to the 2009 census, there were 12,926 Jews in Belarus (0.1% of the population).

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Family Origin: India, Moshav Nevatim, Israel, 2007

Family Origin: India, Moshav Nevatim, Israel 2007

Often framed as a monolithic society, Israel is in fact made up of the many stories of the immigrating families who have built their lives there, united under the values of a shared heritage and history. The Israeli family has a distinct blend of customs from their original home country and the homeland.

Immigration to Israel is known as aliyah (ascent) and a newcomer as an oleh, one who has risen up, as if having attained new heights arriving in the Biblical, historic, and religious homeland of the Jewish people. The elders in these photographs had reasons for aliyah as diverse as their backgrounds.

The reality for new arrivals to Israel was often more harsh than the promised dream of “a land flowing with milk and honey”. These challenges are a reminder of the complexity of building one nation that includes Jewish people from every corner of the earth.

Indian Jews are a religious minority of India, but unlike many parts of the world, have historically lived in India without any instances of antisemitism from the local majority populace, the Hindus. The better-established ancient communities have assimilated a large number of local traditions through cultural diffusion. The Jewish population in India today is under 5000. In addition to Jewish expatriates and recent immigrants, there are ancient various Jewish groups in India, the largest of which is Bene Israel.

Family Origin: Uzbekistan, Kiryat Malachi, Israel, 2007

Family Origin: Uzbekistan, Kiryat Malachi, Israel 2007.

Often framed as a monolithic society, Israel is in fact made up of the many stories of the immigrating families who have built their lives there, united under the values of a shared heritage and history. The Israeli family has a distinct blend of customs from their original home country and the homeland.

Immigration to Israel is known as aliyah (ascent) and a newcomer as an oleh, one who has risen up, as if having attained new heights arriving in the Biblical, historic, and religious homeland of the Jewish people. The elders in these photographs had reasons for aliyah as diverse as their backgrounds.

The reality for new arrivals to Israel was often more harsh than the promised dream of “a land flowing with milk and honey”. These challenges are a reminder of the complexity of building one nation that includes Jewish people from every corner of the earth.

Bukharan Jews, also Bukharian Jews or Bukhari Jews, are Jews from Central Asia who speak Bukhori, a dialect of the Tajik-Persian language. Their name comes from the former Central Asian Emirate of Bukhara, which once had a sizable Jewish community. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the great majority have emigrated to Israel or to the United States (especially Forest Hills, New York), while others have emigrated to Europe or Australia. According to some ancient texts, there were Israelites that began traveling to Central Asia to work as traders during the reign of King David of Jerusalem as far back as the 10th century B.C.E. When Persian King Cyrus conquered Babylon, he encouraged the Jews he liberated to settle in his empire, which included areas of Central Asia. In the Middle Ages, the largest Jewish settlement in Central Asia was in the Emirate of Bukhara.

Modern sources have described the Bukhara Jews as, for example, “an ethnic and linguistic group in Central Asia claiming descent from 5th-century exiles from Persia”.

The Bukharan Jews are considered one of the oldest ethno-religious groups of Central Asia and over the years they have developed their own distinct culture. Throughout the years, Jews from other Eastern countries such as Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Syria, and Morocco migrated into Central Asia (usually by taking the Silk Road

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Family Origin: Yemen, Moshav Yishi, Israel, 2007

Family Origin: Yemen, Moshav Yishi, Israel 2007

Often framed as a monolithic society, Israel is in fact made up of the many stories of the immigrating families who have built their lives there, united under the values of a shared heritage and history. The Israeli family has a distinct blend of customs from their original home country and the homeland.

Immigration to Israel is known as aliyah (ascent) and a newcomer as an oleh, one who has risen up, as if having attained new heights arriving in the Biblical, historic, and religious homeland of the Jewish people. The elders in these photographs had reasons for aliyah as diverse as their backgrounds.

The reality for new arrivals to Israel was often more harsh than the promised dream of “a land flowing with milk and honey”. These challenges are a reminder of the complexity of building one nation that includes Jewish people from every corner of the earth.

According to various sources Jews lived in Yemen at least since the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem, some trace Jewish life to the first temple period. Yemenite Jews are those Jews who live, or lived, in Yemen. Between June 1949 and September 1950, the overwhelming majority of Yemen’s Jewish population was transported to Israel in operation “On Eagle Wings”. Most Yemenite Jews now live in Israel, with some others in the United States, and fewer elsewhere; Only a handful remain in Yemen.

Yemenite Jews have a unique religious tradition that marks them out as separate from Ashkenazi, Sephardi and other Jewish groups.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia