Jewish Heritage Resources: Home

A rich history of how Jewish women maintained their identity and influenced social activism as they wrote themselves into American history.

Provides detailed accounts of twenty-one acts of defiance committed against Nazis in Nazi-occupied countries during World War II.

Examines the stories of children and teen resisters in Europe during the Holocaust, including resistance groups, unarmed resistance, armed resistance in the ghettos and camps, and partisan units.

Traces the life of a Jewish girl who chronicled her day-to-day life in a diary as she hid in an attic in Nazi-occupied Holland for two years.

An illustrated account of immigrant Clara Lemlich's pivotal role in the influential 1909 women laborer's strike describes how she worked grueling hours to acquire an education and support her family before organizing a massive walkout to protest the unfair working conditions in New York's garment district.

During the Nazi occupation of France, Monique's mother hides a Jewish family in her basement and tries to help them escape to freedom.

While Rebecca Rubin helps her building's ailing superintendent take care of his homing pigeons, she puzzles over what to do with the Christmas centerpiece her teacher insisted she make but which has no place in her Jewish home.

Two Jewish sisters, escapees of the infamous Warsaw ghetto, devise a plan to thwart an attempt by the Gestapo to intercept food bound for starving people behind the dark Wall.

This collection focuses on the eight major holidays in the Jewish year, starting with Shabbat and ending with Shavuot, and includes crafts and food recipes.

When his sins threaten the lives of his beloved twin children, a Jewish man finally repents of his wicked ways.

When Isobel visits her Aunt Luisa at Hanukkah, she not only has a wonderful time, she learns some new things about this special holiday.

Joni and Nate figure out how to celebrate a tree's birthday for Tu B'Shevat.

For International Day at school, Pablo wants to bring something that reflects the cultures of both his parents.

An account of the ocean voyage and arrival at Ellis Island of twelve-year-old Julius Weinstein who, along with his mother and younger sister, immigrated from Russia in 1922.

Lola upsets her best friends by playing Halloween tricks on them but with help from her family, she may still be able to enjoy her favorite holiday.

In 1936 Baltimore, an eleven-year-old Jewish girl, one of twelve siblings, tries to find her place in her overcrowded family.

When his Jewish parents send him to a Minnesota logging camp to escape the influenza epidemic of 1918, ten-year-old Marven finds a special friend.

Lucy Latke's family is a family of potato pancakes. After lighting the menorah and gobbling the gelt, Grandpa Latke tells everyone the Hanukkah story, but it's up to the Latke family dog to set the record straight.

Aviva is not happy with her unusual name until she hears wonderful things about her great-grandmother, after whom she was named.

A boy is worried that his little sister's climbing will spoil the first night of Hanukkah, when his family combines his father's Jewish traditions with his mother's East Indian cooking.

A simple biography of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

An illustrated biography of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, highlighting her life and accomplishments despite the unfair treatment she often experienced.

n this Eastern European Jewish variant of the Cinderella story, the youngest daughter of a rabbi is sent away from home in disgrace, but thanks to the help of the prophet Elijah, marries the son of a renowned scholar and is reunited with her family. Includes words and music to a traditional Yiddish wedding song.

A thirteen-year-old Jewish orphan reluctantly leaves her grandmother and immigrates to New York City, where she works for three years sewing lace and earning money to bring Grandmother to the United States, too.

As autumn approaches Ilse Stern is thinking about her infatuation with Hermann Rød, and whether his determination to be a painter will interfere with their romance--but the reality of being Jewish in occupied Oslo is about to turn her whole world upside down, as the deportation of the Norwegian Jews begins.

This adaptation of Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl into a graphic version for a young readership, maintains the integrity and power of the original work. With stunning, expressive illustrations and ample direct quotation from the diary, this edition will expand the readership for this important and lasting work of history and literature.

Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.

Bored and lonely after his family moves from Berlin to a place called "Out-With" in 1942, Bruno, the son of a Nazi officer, befriends a boy in striped pajamas who lives behind a wire fence.

"It's 2002. In the aftermath of the twin towers--and the death of her beloved grandmother--Shirli Berman is intent on moving forward. The best singer in her junior high, she auditions for the lead role in Fiddler on the Roof, but is crushed to learn that she's been given the part of the old Jewish mother in the musical rather than the coveted part of the sister. But there is an upside: her 'husband' is none other than Ben Morgan, the cutest and most popular boy in the school. Deciding to throw herself into the role, she rummages in her grandfather's attic for some props. There, she discovers an old violin in the corner--strange, since her Zayde has never seemed to like music, never even going to any of her recitals. Showing it to her grandfather unleashes an anger in him she has never seen before, and while she is frightened of what it might mean, Shirli keeps trying to connect with her Zayde and discover the awful reason behind his anger."

At the Sevres Children's Home outside Paris, Rachel Cohen has discovered her passion--photography. Although she hasn't heard from her parents in months, she loves the people at her school, adores capturing what she sees in pictures, and tries not to worry too much about Hitler's war. But as France buckles under the Nazi regime, danger closes in, and Rachel must change her name and go into hiding."

In 1940s Brooklyn, New York, an accident throws Reuven Malther and Danny Saunders together. Despite their differences (Reuven is a Modern Orthodox Jew with an intellectual, Zionist father; Danny is the brilliant son and rightful heir to a Hasidic rebbe), the young men form a deep, if unlikely, friendship. Together they negotiate adolescence, family conflicts, the crisis of faith engendered when Holocaust stories begin to emerge in the U.S., loss, love, and the journey to adulthood.

Crossing paths at an inn, thirteenth-century travelers impart the tales of a monastery oblate, a Jewish refugee, and a psychic peasant girl with a loyal greyhound, the three of whom join forces on a chase through France to escape persecution.

A novel set in 1937 Europe tells the story of three Hungarian Jewish brothers bound by history and love, of a marriage tested by disaster, of a Jewish family's struggle against annihilation by the Nazis, and of the dangerous power of art in the time of war.

Twelve-year-old Imani, the only black girl in Hebrew school, is preparing for her bat mitzvah and hoping to find her birthparents when she discovers the history of adoption in her own family through her great-grandma Anna's Holocaust-era diary.

Follows the true story of Dita Kraus, a fourteen-year-old girl from Prague who after being sent to Auschwitz is chosen to protect the eight volumes prisoners have smuggled past the guards.

Devorah, a young Hasidic Jewish woman with a strict upbringing, and Jaxon, a fun-loving, book-smart nerd, who live across the street from one another in Brooklyn and have never met are trapped together in an elevator during a hurricane and make a connection. Even though their relationship is forbidden, they continue to meet.

In 1960s New York, fifth-grader Ruthie, a Cuban-Jewish immigrant, must rely on books, art, her family, and friends in her multicultural neighborhood when an accident puts her in a body cast.

Tara Feinstein, proud of both her East Indian and Jewish heritage, questions what it means to have a bat mitzvah and deals with her own doubts about her faith.

After her beloved grandmother, Nana, dies, non-religious twelve-year-old Caroline becomes curious about her mother's Jewish ancestry.

Sent to Japan for the summer after an eighth-grade classmate's suicide, half-Japanese, half-Jewish Kana Goldberg tries to fit in with relatives she barely knows and reflects on the guilt she feels over the tragedy back home.

Eleven-year-old Marianne is fortunate. She one of the first two hundred Jewish children on the heroic rescue operation known as the Kindertransport, which arrived in London, England in December, 1938. With the outbreak of World War II in 1939 Marianne finds herself being evacuated to Wales. She is shuffled from one unsuitable home to another, but there is a surprise in store and Marianne's courage and resilience is finally rewarded.

In 1983 seventh-grader David Da-Wei Horowitz has a lot to worry about--his bar mitzvah is coming soon; his Jewish and Chinese grandmothers argue about everything; his teammates for the upcoming trivia contest, Scott and Hector, do not like each other; he is beginning to notice girls; and Scott has persuaded him to begin digging a fallout shelter just in case the Cold War heats up.

Liberated from Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in 1945, Gerta has lost her family and everything she knew. Without her Papa, her music, or even her true identity, she must move past the task of surviving and onto living her life. Gerta meets Lev, a fellow teen survivor, and Michah, who helps Jews reach Palestine. With a newfound Jewish identity she never knew she had, and a return to the life of music she thought she lost forever, Gerta must choose how to build a new future.

When Sonia's father loses his job and she must move from her small, supportive private school to a public middle school, where the half-Jewish, half-Indian sixth-grader experiences culture shock as she tries to navigate the school's unfamiliar social scene, and after her father is diagnosed with clinical depression, she finds herself becoming even more confused about herself and her family.

"Kalinka, a Ukrainian Jewish girl on the run from the Nazis, finds unlikely help from two rare Przewalski horses."