HERITAGE: Civilization and the jews - PBS

Exploring Heritage via the historical atlas
Teachers and students who wish to explore Jewish and world history
from a geographical perspective can enter the Heritage:
Civilization and the Jews DVD-ROM through the gateway of the historical
atlas, a set of 540 annotated maps. The first map, a view of
the world beginning in 3100 B.C.E, can be accessed by clicking
ATLAS on the opening screen, and from most other screens by
clicking “a” on the right of the title bar at the top of the screen.
Each map screen consists of the following components:
• A MAP that can be explored both chronologically (with the
timeline) and spatially (with the navigational tool). Some maps
contain several raised areas that can be zoomed in on by
clicking the cursor anywhere on their surface, allowing exploration
of additional levels of detail. Move your cursor around on
the map to discover “hot” locations, and click them for text bubbles
containing facts, accounts of milestone events, or capsule
biographies of noted personalities.
• A scroll-down TIMELINE that charts geographical changes over
time. Click specific dates on the timeline, or click and drag the
“globe” icon to move up or down the timeline, and note the
changes in the map at right.
• A THUMBNAIL NAVIGATIONAL MAP that allows you to move
around each map. Click and drag the red square on the thumbnail
map at lower left to move up, down, left, or right to view the
different regions on the large central map. A “zoom out” button
below the thumbnail map allows you to zoom back to a broader
view of the world.
• A TITLE BAR showing the date range currently active on the
timeline. The atlas has been organized into seven different date
ranges, spanning 3100 B.C.E. to 2001 C.E., that correspond to the
dates covered in the video programs of Heritage. Click the title
bar at the top of the screen for a drop-down menu of all available
date ranges, and click another to change the active date range.
• A SUMMARY text button, that, when clicked, causes a text
panel to appear, superimposed on the map. This text panel
summarizes important events and trends that occurred during
the date range currently onscreen. Each geographical region has
its own unique text panel for every date range.
• A CLICKABLE ITEMS tab. Press this tab to alter the map currently
on screen by highlighting only the map elements which are
“hot” and contain text bubble annotations. All other map elements
will be darkened and faded into the background.
• A MODERN VIEW tab. Press this tab to instantly obtain a ca.
2000 view of the region currently on screen.
• A MAP LEGEND tab. Press this tab to view the map’s scale and
definitions of icons.
Teachers and students can explore the geography of Jewish history in
several different ways:
• To study changes in a specific region or country over time, move
chronologically through the maps by scrolling down the timeline
or by using the title bar to change the date range.
• To study a specific era in depth, explore all levels of a map for one
• date range or for one point on the timeline.
• To explore a geographical topic further, search the Concise
Judaica or the general index. For example, after reading the text
bubble for Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E., you may want to read the article
on Jerusalem in the Concise Judaica. Click the HERITAGE “H” icon
at lower right, and then CONCISE JUDICA from the menu that
appears. To conduct an index search, click I on the top menu bar.
(See the sections of this guide entitled Concise Judaica and
Exploring Heritage via an index search for instructions on how to
use the encyclopedia or index.)
map screen showing
zoom view of Israel
map with text bubble
map screen
with world view
Exploring Heritage via an index search
Another way of entering Heritage is through the index search
screen. This gateway is most useful when you want to look up
and explore specific themes in Jewish history or find all material
pertaining to a certain time period or geographical region. The
index search screen can be accessed by clicking INDEX on the
opening screen, and from most other screens by clicking I on the
right of the title bar at the top of the screen.
Searches can be conducted in the following ways:
• Click one of the three categories (DATE, SUBJECT, REGION) and
then choose one or more search terms from the pop-up menu.
• Look for items in more than one category or refine your search
by selecting search items from more than one or from all of
the categories.
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