Amherst, MASS. – Educators interested in teaching about modern Jewish literature and culture can access multimedia teaching materials, free of charge, on a new website.

TeachGreatJewishBooks.org, a project of the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass., is home to a growing collection of resource kits focused on various aspects of modern Jewish culture, designed for use by secondary, college, and adult-education teachers. One kit, for instance, considers how Jews were represented onscreen in the early days of cinema, while another explores the kheyder, the first educational experience for young boys in the shtetls of Eastern Europe. The resource kits are not comprehensive lesson plans, but rather collections of materials from which teachers can pick and choose to meet their individual classroom needs.

Educators who would like to contribute new kits to the site should contact Lesley Yalen at lyalen@yiddishbookcenter.org.