Jewish American Heritage Month

Held each May, Jewish American Heritage Month (JAHM) was established in 2006 to recognize more than 350 years of Jewish contributions to American culture in fields ranging from sports and arts and entertainment to medicine, business, science, government, and military service.

General Information

The JAHM Coalition website has a wealth of resources for celebrating Jewish American Heritage Month, including an events calendar to which libraries can add their events, stories about notable Jewish Americans, a historical timeline, and teacher curriculum and other online resources.

The Library of Congress, along with the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, also has an informative site devoted to Jewish American Heritage Month. Offering information on exhibits and collections, images, and audio and video, the site includes stories from Jewish Americans, including “From Haven to Home: 350 Years of Jewish Life in America” and “Jewish Veterans of WWII” as well as the National Park Services’ “Jewish American Historical Places.”

Library Programming

• The Deerfield (Ill.) Public Library hosted a local historian to share her family's history with the Holocaust. The lecture included documents, photos, videos, and eyewitness testimony that contributed to the family narrative and honored Jewsih residents of Mikolajow, Poland. 
• The Library of Congress hosted two film screenings for Jewish American Heritage Month. The two films were "Baghdad Twist" (about the disappearance of an Iraqi-Jewish family during the Arab-Israel wars) and "Hava Nagila (The Movie)" (about the history of the song "Hava Nagila").  

Teaching Resources

• The Library of Congress’s offers “Teaching With Documents Lesson Plan: The U.S. Recognition of the State of Israel,” which includes related documents, standards correlations, teaching activities, and a document analysis worksheet.
• The National Endowment for the Humanities offers archives of Jewish history resources on its EDSITEment Web site. The pages provide general information as well as links to featured lessons and Web sites.

Other Resources

You can find general information about Jewish culture as well as related links, bibliographies, music and DVD lists, and more at the following sites:

• Jewish Women’s Archive
• Finkelstein Memorial Library
• The Jewish History Resource Center