In this lesson about "The Foundations of Halacha and Aggada", students will engage in a unit exploring various definitions of Jewish community. They will study both classical (Biblical and Rabbinic) texts and contemporary materials to consider ethical problems raised by living in community.

Many students leave a Modern European Jewish History class with the following assumptions: Western European Jews were enlightened and gave birth to modern Judaism and haskalah while Eastern European Jews were traditional and resistant to haskalah. The story of Eastern European Jews typically centers on those Jews who lived in the shtetlach and were confined to the Pale of settlement and are portrayed as traditionally religious and insular.

This lesson plan describes how an Israeli school used Centropa´s Detinko film with Amos Oz's book "A tale of love and darkness". Both depict Jewish pre-war life in Rovno.

In this lesson about "Viennese Jewry in the 1930’s", students will learn about early Zionism and Jewish life in Austria in the first part of the 20th Century.  Students will engage themselves with materials on the Nuremberg Laws, the Anchluss, Kristallnacht (November Pogrom), and the American response to Jewish immigration from Europe in the 1930s.