Jewish Experience

Mission US: City of Immigrants

In Mission 4: “City of Immigrants,” players navigate New York’s Lower East Side as Lena, a young Jewish immigrant from Russia. Trying to save money to bring her parents to America, she works long hours in a factory for little money and gets caught up in the growing labor movement.

Joseph Had a Little Overcoat

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Copies: 1

Joseph had a little overcoat, but it was full of holes—just like this book! When Joseph's coat got too old and shabby, he made it into a jacket. But what did he make it into after that? And after that?
As children turn the pages of this book, they can use the die-cut holes to guess what Joseph will be making next from his amazing overcoat, while they laugh at the bold, cheerful artwork and learn that you can always make something, even out of nothing.

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BR

The Book Thief

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Based on the beloved best-selling book comes an "extremely moving" (Leonard Maltin, Indiewire) story of a girl who transforms the lives of those around her during World War II Germany. When her mother can no longer care for her, Liesel (Sophie Nelisse) is adopted by a German couple (OSCAR® Winner Geoffrey Rush and OSCAR® Nominee Emily Watson). Although she arrives illiterate, Liesel is encouraged to learn to read by her adoptive father. When the couple then takes in Max (Ben Schnetzer), a Jew hiding from Hitler's army, Liesel befriends him.

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Grade Level: 
Middle
High
Length: 
02:11
The Book Thief

Milkweed

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Copies: 5

He's a boy called Jew. Gypsy. Stopthief. Runt. Happy. Fast. Filthy son of Abraham. He's a boy who lives in the streets of Warsaw. He's a boy who steals food for himself and the other orphans. He's a boy who believes in bread, and mothers, and angels. He's a boy who wants to be a Nazi some day, with tall shiny jackboots and a gleaming Eagle hat of his own. Until the day that suddenly makes him change his mind. And when the trains come to empty the Jews from the ghetto of the damned, he's a boy who realizes it's safest of all to be nobody.

Lexile: 
510L
Milkweed

Letters from Rifka (Unabridged)

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Rifka knows nothing about America when she flees from Russia with her family in 1919. But she dreams that in the new country she will at last be safe from the Russian soldiers and their harsh treatment of the Jews. Throughout her journey, Rifka carries with her a cherished volume of poetry by Alexander Pushkin.

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Grade Level: 
Lexile: 
660L
Length: 
03:02
Letters from Rifka (Unabridged)

Number the Stars (Unabridged)

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Ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen and her best friend Ellen Rosen often think of life before the war. It's now 1943, and their life in Copenhagen is filled with school, food shortages, and the Nazi soldiers marching through town. When the Jews of Denmark are "relocated," Ellen moves in with the Johansens and pretends to be one of the family.

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Grade Level: 
Lexile: 
670L
Length: 
05:32
Number the Stars (Unabridged)

Night (Unabridged)

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It is 1944. The Jews of Sighet, Hungary are rounded up and driven into Nazi concentration camps. For the next terrible year, young Elie Wiesel experiences the loss of everything he loves — home, friends, family — in an agonizing journey through Birkenau, Auschwitz, Buna, and Buchenwald. The greatest tragedy of our time, told through the eyes of a 15-year old boy.

Author: 
Grade Level: 
Lexile: 
590L
Length: 
04:18
Night (Unabridged)