Hebrew Book Week

Dear חברים ומשפחה, apologies for the long hiatus since my last post – the last few weeks have been busy ones.

I’ll begin by backtracking a bit. On May 29, before our trip to Jerusalem, A. and I got to experience what is known here as שבוע הספר העברי (Hebrew Book Week). I had learned about it before in my Hebrew classes (click on the image below to enlarge it):

Here’s my translation for those who are even more Hebrew-challenged than me:

Hebrew Book Week

Every year in June there is in Israel a festival: the Hebrew book festival. In the stores there are books, in the streets there are books; children buy books, ladies and gentlemen buy books, everybody buys books!

Every year in June I have a problem – I want to buy a lot of books… I go from shop to shop, from salesman to salesman and buy books: books for friends, books for children of friends, books for mother, for father, for me.

In my closet there are only books. My shirts are on the chair, the dresses are on the bed, the cassettes are on the table, because I am crazy for books.

But this year, this year I want to buy only one book, something old, something classic and good.

In the street they sell books. I say to the salesman: “Excuse me, mister, maybe you have something by Tolstoy?”

“I have a new book by A. B. Yehoshua, a new book by Amos Oz, a new book in Hebrew by Margaret Atwood, an excellent writer from Canada.”

“No, no, I want to buy only one book.”

“You don’t want to see the new books?”

“It’s possible only to see?”

“No problem! Please.”

I stand and read from the book by Amos Oz, I read a little of the book by A. B Yehoshua, from the book by Margaret Atwood… and I go home with three new books.

Is it any wonder that Israel would have such a festival? After all, Jews have long been known as the People of the Book.

Despite our limited Hebrew literacy, A. and I were excited about Hebrew Book Week and enjoyed it. We even bought a few children’s books in Hebrew to bring back to the States for our friends J.R. and A.G. and their son. Here we are browsing books at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv.

All those books made me dizzy.

Here is A., looking for טולסטוי perhaps?

Happy reading!