The Montana Jewish Project is once again giving away book kits focusing on the anchor text, Christmas Menorahs: How a Town Fought Hate. The picture book is based on a 1993 episode in Billings. After members of a hate group threw a rock through a Jewish family's window during Hanukkah, the community organized in opposition. Over 10,000 Billings residents displayed pictures of menorahs in their windows as an expression of solidarity with their Jewish neighbors. The event sparked a larger movement called Not in Our Town.
We included the book and a lesson plan in our hands-on history footlocker Coming to Montana: Immigrants from Around the World. (Information on ordering the footlocker can be found here.)
Billings social studies teacher Bruce Wendt had his students work with the Western Heritage Center to create an exhibit on the twentieth anniversary of the incident. You can read about the project here. That student-created exhibit is now a traveling exhibit that your school can borrow from the WHC. Contact Bruce Wendt for more information.
The Montana Jewish Project adapted our lesson plan for their book kits, which also include a copy of the picture book, a menorah, and dreidels (special tops that Jewish children play with at Hanukkah). And unlike the MTHS footlocker, these kits are yours to keep. They did this last year too, and the teachers who got them loved them.
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