Chil­dren’s

Yosef’s Dream

Sylvia Rouss; Tamar Blu­men­feld, illus.
  • Review
By – March 24, 2017

Yosef lives in a far­away land. Ethiopia is a land filled with tall moun­tains and flow­ing rivers; a land where baboons, hip­pos and zebras roam free. But in this land of abun­dant beau­ty, there are few Jew­ish fam­i­lies and Yosef believes that none live beyond the edges of his village.

As Yosef tells his sto­ry, we expe­ri­ence the enchant­i­ng cul­ture of his vil­lage. We can almost taste the spicy meat stew they eat as we sit with them in their huts. We lis­ten in as they share sto­ries of their ances­tors while watch­ing the stars through the open door­ways of their hut.

Then one day Yosef falls into a deep hole. While there, he has a wild dream. Gazelle, Hye­na and Eagle are there to help him escape the hole and Yosef must decide with which to go.

Lat­er, a stranger vis­its Yosef’s school and tells of a won­der­ful jour­ney they can all take, a jour­ney to a far off land called Israel, a land filled with Jew­ish peo­ple. And the best part is — they will fly there, just like the eagle in Yosef’s dream!

Yosef’s Dream is based on the 1991 exo­dus of near­ly 14,000 Ethiopi­an Jews to Israel over a 36-hour peri­od of time. It is a sto­ry of hope and brav­ery and is an excel­lent book to share with the slight­ly old­er pic­ture book audi­ence. Sylvia Rouss, with help from Ambas­sador Ash­er Naim, weaves a cap­ti­vat­ing tale, beau­ti­ful­ly illus­trat­ed by Tamar Blu­men­feld. An author’s note gives his­tor­i­cal back­ground about the mis­sion, called Oper­a­tion Solomon. 

Writ­ten pri­mar­i­ly for ages 6 – 10, this is a must-have book for every family!

Mar­cia Ber­neger is a retired teacher who lives with her hus­band and three crazy dogs. She taught both first and sec­ond grade, as well as spe­cial edu­ca­tion. She cur­rent­ly teach­es Torah school, in addi­tion to her vol­un­teer work in class­rooms, libraries, and with var­i­ous fundrais­ers. She lives in San Diego.

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