Each numbered dot marks a place where Jewish communities have lived for a long time.
Find each number in the key under the map. Read what makes that community special.
Use the key to find where each What They Carried card belongs.
Last: circle the community you would most like to visit.
Dot colors show the part of the world: the AmericasEuropeAfricaAsia
1 · United States: one of the biggest Jewish communities today, made of families who came here from every other place on this map. They brought foods like the bagel, now sold all over the country.
2 · Spain: long ago a great community lived here. After they were forced to leave in 1492, they carried their own language, Ladino, all around the Mediterranean Sea.
3 · Poland: for hundreds of years the largest community, with its own language (Yiddish), lively klezmer music played on the clarinet and violin, and foods like challah.
4 · Morocco: a North African community famous for sweet honey pastries, drums and singing at celebrations, and beautiful old synagogues you can still visit.
5 · Ethiopia: a community in the Horn of Africa that kept Jewish traditions for a very long time, far from all the others, with its own holiday, Sigd, and a round holiday bread called dabo.
6 · Iraq: one of the oldest Jewish communities anywhere. Families lived here for more than 2,500 years, known for date cookies and old prayer melodies.
7 · Yemen: famous for beautiful silver jewelry made by hand, special songs, and a way of saying Hebrew kept carefully for hundreds of years.
8 · Curaçao: a tiny island in the Caribbean Sea. Families who sailed here from Amsterdam in 1651 built a bright yellow synagogue that has stood since 1732. Its floor is covered in sand.
★ Think about it: These families lived very far apart, spoke different languages, and ate different foods. What did they all share? (Hint: look at the words in the title.)
K–5 Lesson