Jewish Worship and Community - The Complete Series (5 lessons)

Complete with lesson plans, slides, differentiated activities and a range of printable resources, this 'Jewish Worship and Community' scheme of work contains everything you need for a half term of RE teaching.

This introductory lesson gives your class a brief history of Judaism before going on to look at what worship means to Jewish people. It explores some of the key features of worship in Judaism, including where they worship, what the Siddur and Torah are, and what happens during the weekly keeping of Shabbat.

For their activities, children will find out about Shabbat ask and answer questions about Jewish worship.  

This lesson looks at prayer as being central to Jewish worship and encourages your class to think about what and how Jews might pray, including the use of tefillin, prayer shawls, and kippahs. Children will have the chance to look at some specific Jewish prayers for themselves and see if they can interpret their meaning.

Children will have the opportunity to find out about the importance of prayer in Judaism in their independent activities.  

What does it mean to belong to a community? This lesson explores this question and looks at some of the initiation rituals in Judaism, looking particularly at Bar and Bat Mitzvah. Your class will explore the purposes and meaning behind a Bar or Bat Mitzvah and find out about ways in which they are celebrated by families and communities.

During the activities section of the lesson, your class will make a poster or an invitation to a Bar or Bat Mitzvah or they will look in detail at Bar or Bat Mitzvah greeting cards.  

This lesson gives your class the chance to reflect on how belonging to a faith community affects your actions in the wider community and studies some of the charitable works undertaken by different faith groups. They will then go on to look at the Jewish law of 'tzedakah' and how this affects Jews in their daily lives, as well as considering global and local causes your children would consider supporting themselves.

During the activity section of the lesson, your class will research charities or think about causes that are important to their local area. 

The final lesson in this series looks at what happens when Jews go to the synagogue to worship. It introduces the rabbi and cantor and looks at how the Torah and other objects are used during worship.

When working independently your class will think about the significance of the Star of David for Jewish worshippers. Alternatively, they can think of questions they would like to ask a Jewish member of the community before interviewing them.