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Collection

Addressing Current Events in the Classroom

Get resources for addressing troubling antisemitic incidents persisting around the world today with your students.

Published: December 1, 2021

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Collection

Language

English — US

Subject

Civics & Citizenship
English & Language Arts
History
Social Studies

Grade

6–12

Antisemitism

Overview

Antisemitic incidents persist around the world. These resources offer sensitive entry points to confront these troubling events. Get teaching ideas and strategies for addressing current events and tough topics related to antisemitism with your students.

This collection is designed to be flexible. You can use all of the resources or choose a selection best suited to your classroom. It includes:

1 collection
1 guide
4 mini-lessons

Inside this Collection

Collection

Explore classroom resources for making connections between current events and your curriculum, including activities and discussion strategies for high school and middle school students.

A student speaks while another listens attentively.

Guide

This guide includes tools and strategies for organizing discussions about current events in your classroom.

Photo of students seated in a classroom.

Mini-Lesson

This Teaching Idea is designed to help guide an initial class discussion on the hostage situation at Congregation Beth Israel of Colleyville, Texas.

Mini-Lesson

This Teaching Idea contains strategies and activities for supporting your students in the aftermath of violent events targeted at people because of their identities.

Closeup of people holding candle vigil in darkness expressing and seeking hope

Mini-Lesson

The mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue capped off a week of hate crimes and political violence in the United States. These teaching ideas help teachers and students process the events and reflect on what they mean for them and their communities.

Mini-Lesson

Students learn about the overall rise in acts of hate in schools and examine a story that illustrates how acts of antisemitism, racism, and other forms of hate can overlap.

A young man holds a dark can of spray paint close to a blue wall to sketch his graffiti

Collection

Explore resources that meet the California History–Social Science Framework standards.

Four students sit in a circle in conversation. The student in the center speaks with their hands raised.

Collection

Explore the origins and history of prejudice and discrimination against Jews with the resources in this collection.

Collection

Examine how racialized antisemitism has impacted Jews and Jewish communities over the past few centuries with the resources in this collection.

An issue of the antisemitic propaganda newspaper Der Stürmer (The Attacker) is posted on the sidewalk in Worms, Germany, in 1935. The headline above the case says, ""The Jews Are Our Misfortune.""

Collection

Explore resources that meet the Massachusetts History and Social Science Framework.

Students working in groups in a classroom

Collection

Help students strengthen their civic voices by exploring examples of individuals who are choosing to participate and make their voices heard in their communities.

Mini-Lesson

These activities are designed to help students reflect on the devastating attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Image fore Reflecting on New Zealand Mosque attacks.

Mini-Lesson

This Teaching Idea is designed to help students reflect on how the movies, shows, and books we consume can reinforce stereotypes about Muslims and the harmful impact stereotyping has on people's lives.

Mini-Lesson

Help students analyze recent trends regarding receding Holocaust memory and the resurgence of antisemitism in Europe, and prompt them to consider how history can help us confront hate in the world.

Protesters against Antisemitism in Paris, 2018

Lesson

Students explore antisemitic tropes, their troubled history, their evolution and their present manifestation in further depth, and consider the harm that their circulation can cause.

Lesson

Students to reflect on the consequences of allowing antisemitism to go unchallenged for Jews and for wider society, and explore ways in which they and others can challenge antisemitism.

Protestor holding "No Tolerance for Anti-Semitism" sign at demonstration

Unit

This unit is designed to help students in the UK reflect on how antisemitism manifests in contemporary society and what needs to be done to challenge it.

Picture of two uniformed students in a classroom.

Activity

Students develop their vocabulary for describing their feelings and work their empathy muscles by reflecting on the color of their mood.

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Most teachers are willing to tackle the difficult topics, but we need the tools.

— Gabriela Calderon-Espinal, Bay Shore, NY

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Addressing Current Events in the Classroom