D olly
Elizabeth Applebaum
Gilt Guide Editor
A charming book chronicles a group of dolls who
journey from the United States to Israel —
plus a great collection of new
Jewish children's books.
The Dolls' Journey to Eretz Israel by Abraham
Regelson. Copyright 2004, published by Biblio
Books. 102 pages. Paperback. $12, available
only at http: bibliobooks.com/dollsjourney.html.
The Dolls' Journey to Eretz Israel [the Land of Israel] is
a
delightful book about a girl named Sharona and her
nine dolls.
Interestingly, the book really began many years ago as
a series of short stories in the Israeli newspaper Davar. It
is compiled here for the first time in book form in English.
As the dolls' journey begins in 1933, Sharona and her family are moving to
Israel. Bringing all those dolls with them would be too much, her father says, so
Sharona gives them to her friend, Phyllis.
Phyllis offers the dolls a nice home, but they are terribly sad without their
Sharona. (In fact, they are a bit demanding when it comes to reuniting with
Sharona who, they assert, is their "true imma [mother])." They actually insist they
be taken to her). So kind little Phyllis finds a car to take the dolls to New York,
after which they will board a ship bound for Israel. And so the journey begins.
At the end of the first day to New York, the dolls stop at a dreadful restaurant
that sells nothing but coffee. Then the dolls' driver,
Viking, sees that his car is broken. Viking tries to fix it,
but he cannot. Fortunately, Orville Wright himself comes
along and takes the dolls to Sharona's aunt's house in
New York. After a few days, Sharona's aunt takes the
dolls to their boat and they say their goodbyes.
Safely aboard the boat, they make it to Israel where
they go live with Sharona. They celebrate a wonderful
Chanukah, have a party and plant a splendid garden.
The dolls are happy to at last be in Israel.
This is an endearing little book, with a collection of
characters who love each other very much despite the great challenges of traveling
together (yes, the comparisons to real immigrants are obvious). Girls -- and boys,
too — from about age 8 to 13 will love this story, which is both a nice tale and
well-written.
As compelling as the story is an introduction by Sharona Regelson Tel-Oren,
who translated the book and is the real Sharona, and the author's daughter. She
writes of her childhood home life (her mother's kitchen was "resounding with the
music of cantorial twirls while she concocted unimaginably unique vegetarian del-
icacies") and of others who loved this book, including the late Israeli singer
Naomi Shemer, who cited it as her favorite childhood book.
HELLO DOLLY ON PAGE
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