mosaics

Jewish peoplehood education today faces a persistent challenge: learners often encounter Jewish diversity through simplification, polarization, or isolated facts, rather than as a living web of relationships. The Mosaic of the Jewish People is a resource designed to address this challenge by supporting relational sense-making – an approach that helps learners explore who Jews are, how Jewish lives differ, and how those differences nonetheless belong together within a shared people.

The Mosaic is a deck of character cards—each representing a fictional child from across the global Jewish people—that is loosely demographically representative of Jewish geographical, religious, and ethnic diversity. Each card (or “tile”) includes a name, hometown, short narrative, and a set of core identities. Taken together, the deck offers a mediated, playful way for learners, especially in late elementary and middle school, to notice patterns of overlap, difference, and tension, and begin locating themselves within that larger mosaic. The resource is intended as an instructional tool for educators, inviting curiosity, comparison, and reflection rather than consensus or persuasion.

Resource Includes:

  • Printable cards
  • Digital card viewer
  • Educator guide
  • Full card list 
  • Research paper
Topic
  • Jewish Peoplehood
Grades
  • 3 - 7
Setting
  • After School and Beyond
  • Educator Training
  • Congregational Learning
  • Day Schools and Yeshivas
  • Family Engagement

Discover more

Two people working at a grocery store

Daniel Olson discusses his research on Jewish Education for people with disabilities.

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A teacher stands with his students

Rabbi Matthew Dreffin of the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life speaks with David Bryfman about the vitality of Jewish life in the South, and how he designs intensely detailed curriculum with the intention that anyone- even people with no Jewish knowledge- could teach Hebrew

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Shorashim TIC

Temple Israel Center White Plains, NY. This model encourages full-time educators to go beyond the classroom by engaging learners at the synagogue, in their homes, as well as, in the community.

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