A couple of museums have shows that tell a little off-the-beaten path tale about the histories of the people who make up Miami today. Rather than huge exhibits trying to cover broad topics, the Jewish Museum of Florida and the University of Miami have bitten off a few interesting pieces that nonetheless let us in on a whole. At the Jewish Museum, “Wooden Synagogues of Poland and the Florida Connection” may at first seem esoteric, but aside from being fascinating, it’s far more wide in scope in its relevant history. The area once called the Pale of Settlement, the territories to the west of Imperial Russia where Jews were only allowed to live, incorporated most of today’s Poland and Lithuania. It was an impoverished land spotted with small, Jewish-majority villages, the shtetls, and which would become home to the largest percent of population of the Jewish diaspora and, eventually, the ancestors of most American-Jews (about 80 percent).

In the shtetls, synagogues were built from the easiest and most accessible material, wood. They would come to express the local folk art in their designs, a unique Eastern European Jewish hybrid. But wooden structures in general don’t last, and after the Holocaust they were either left to decay or intentionally destroyed, yet a few do remain. At the museum, models of some made by Peter Maurice are on display, along with photos and artifacts from Floridians whose relatives once hailed from that Pale.

On Feb. 8, University of Miami’s Department of Art & Art History and Africana Studies kicks off Black History Month with the “Slavery to Self Determination” exhibit. But again, rather than taking a broad brush, this show features the works of five African-American artists, whose search for an identity in the past and as a modern self takes place in a visual arts form. It will include a series of lectures during its run.

“Wooden Synagogues of Poland and the Florida Connection” through March 18, Jewish Museum of Florida, 301 Washington Ave., Miami Beach; www.jewishmuseum.com. “Slavery to Self Determination” has a special opening on Feb. 8, and panel discussion on Feb. 14, 6 to 8 p.m., at University of Miami’s College of Arts and Sciences Gallery, 1210 Stanford Drive., Coral Gables; 305-284-2543.