The Stories We Tell Our Young Children: Using Picture Books to Explore Race and Black–Jewish Relations

ABSTRACT

Early childhood Jewish education provides an opportune moment to teach about race and Black–Jewish relations as young children grapple with concepts like justice. This article argues that picture books containing interactions between Black and Jewish characters or a Black Jewish character are a powerful pedagogical tool for this purpose. We created the first inventory of picture books that contain these characters, finding 188 of them which we believe can be invaluable in introducing the vital topic of race and racism to young children in early childhood Jewish classrooms through the historically important lenses of Black–Jewish relations and Black Jewish individuals.

KEYWORDS:

• Black and Jewish book characters
• children’s picture books
• early childhood education
• intercommunity solidarity
• early childhood Jewish education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ None of these 12 books contained a Black Jewish character.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Norman J And Gerry Sue Arnold Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Meir Muller

Meir Muller Associate Professor, Department of Teacher Education, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, USA. Email: [email protected]

Eliza Braden

Eliza Braden Associate Professor, Department of Teacher Education, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, USA. Email: [email protected]

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.