JPS: Free readers' guides online

The Jewish Publication Society offers free downloadable teachers/readers guides to some of its titles.

Read about them here.

They can be used for all kinds of groups, schools, adult education and others. They might also lead to more gift ideas for children and teens.

Genealogists should enjoy Vanessa L. Och's award-winning Inventing Jewish Ritual, for which the Leaders’ Guide suggests activities for exploring the meaning of Jewish objects, old and new; new ritual practices; ways to curate a mini-exhibit of contemporary Jewish life; and ways in which to conduct an ethnographic journey through one’s own Jewish life.

Did your family come through Galveston, Texas? Zayda was a Cowboy by June Levitt Nislick has a Study Guide which asks thought-provoking questions and provides background information on the Galveston Plan, a less-studied aspect of Jewish life in America in the late 19th-early 20th centuries.

While there are guides for such children's titles as The JPS Illustrated Children’s Bible, there's also the guide by Neal Scheindlin for The Commentators’ Bible: The JPS Miqrao’ot Gedolot, which has been translated into contemporary English.

One guide that isn't free is a book, Paul Steinberg’s Study Guide to Jewish Ethics, a companion volume to Rabbi Elliot Dorff's three Jewish ethics books: "Matters of Life and Death," "To Do the Right and the Good" and "Love Your Neighbor and Yourself."

Take a look around JPS and view its catalog.