Moving from a familiar place to a new one in the hopes of a
different life can be a difficult concept for children to understand.
Immigration is very much a part of the story of the Jewish people. Books can
convey the anticipation, hopes, and dreams of immigrants, as well as the
trepidation and challenges. Maybe most importantly, picture books can help
teach young children kindness and empathy toward newcomers, and appreciate the
bravery of people in their families and communities who have made such a big
change.
A boy finds his great grandfather's accordion in the attic
and with it the history of klezmer music, his family’s move to America, and the
role the old accordion played in Jewish life through the years. The story shows
how many klezmorim fled Eastern Europe and joined the massive immigration to
America as a result of pogroms and economic oppression in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries. The story is a great reminder of how things—like an
accordion—can tell stories, and how music can, too!
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| illustration from Mendel's Accordion |
A loving father carves carousel horses that represent
members of his family as he saves money to bring them from Europe to America.
This book is a work of historical fiction based on the stories of Jewish
woodcarvers who came from the Old Country and turned their talents to carving
carousel horses on Coney Island. It may surprise many readers to learn that
some of the most beautiful carousel horses in America were carved by Jewish
immigrants. With the emergence of amusement parks such as Brooklyn’s Coney
Island, the carousel industry flourished in the late 1800s. This coincided with
a wave of Eastern European Jewish immigrants who came to America’s shores in the
late 19th century to escape persecution. The newcomers brought with them many
skills, among them woodcarving, and we can still see their handiwork in places expected—like
bridges and buildings—and less expected, like carousels.
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| illustration from Feivel's Flying Horses |
A slice of immigrant life on New York’s Second Avenue,
Rifka Takes a Bow is a unique book about
a vanished time and a place--the Yiddish theater in the early 20th century--made
real through the telling of the true-life story of the 96-year-old author as a
little girl.
Between the late 1800s and the early part of the 20th
century, New York’s Second Avenue was home to over a dozen Yiddish-language
theaters that performed for the many Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants who
lived in the nearby Lower East Side tenements. They presented plays on themes
such as the conflict between Eastern European parents and their American-born
children, and the tensions between Chasidic and “enlightened” Jews, and adapted
works of Shakespeare and other world playwrights to give working class Jews a
chance to partake of high culture.
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| illustration from Rifka Takes a Bow |
When Izzy and Olivia Bloom invite their neighbors over for
Shabbat dinner, everyone is shocked to find out that the Blooms don't have
Shabbat candles. Instead, they have something much more unusual: an antique
Sabbath lamp that's been passed down from generation to generation. How did the
Sabbath lamp get to America? That's a good story . . . the pieces of the lamp
were each brought by a different member of the family when enough funds for
passage had been saved. Finally, the family was reunited and the special lamp
was fully reassembled. This story will help young readers understand how
heirlooms can tell family histories.
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| illustrations from Under the Sabbath Lamp |
Moving from Israel to America is hard for Tomer, who goes by Tommy in his new
school just because it is easier. Tommy’s classmates tease him about his
Israeli accent and his poor English skills, but his knowledge of Hebrew
makes him a hero, leading to a unique friendship with a policeman and his
specially-trained dog. A contemporary story of moving to a new place, young
readers can learn the important lesson of empathy for others.
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| illustration from Speak Up, Tommy! |
Yuvi’s Candy Tree is a fictional story based on the true
story of Yuvi Tashome. Yuvi, a little Ethiopian Jewish girl, escapes the
poverty and terror of Ethiopia in the early 1980s with her grandmother,
arriving in Israel where the orange trees with their sweet fruit fulfill her
dream to live in a place where "candy trees" grow. Yuvi Tashome escaped from Ethiopia to a Sudanese refugee camp when
she was a little girl. She was later airlifted to Israel as part of Operation
Moses, one of several Israeli rescue operations of Ethiopian Jews in the 1980s
and 1990s. Israel’s Law of Return gives Jews of all countries the right to
return to Israel. The Ethiopian Jews viewed Israel as their home, and they
risked their lives to return.
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| illustrations from Yuvi's Candy Tree |
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“We don’t strive for ‘perfect’ Shabbat dinners in our
family—being together for dinner is the most important part for us,” said
Gehls. “I remember one Shabbat where our dinner was takeout pizza. A candle fell over and set the pizza box on
fire!”
