Nuri and the Whale

Nuri and the Whale, translated by Mekella Broomberg, explores the concept of sharing what you have, however little, through an enchanting allegory with exquisite aquatic and sandy-toned illustrations by Moran Yogev’ — Angela Kiverstein, The Jewish Chronicle

Nuri and the Whale, translated by Mekella Broomberg, explores the concept of sharing what you have, however little, through an enchanting allegory with exquisite aquatic and sandy-toned illustrations by Moran Yogev’ — Angela Kiverstein, The Jewish Chronicle

‘There are many children’s pic­ture books that embed a Jew­ish teach­ing in an illus­trat­ed text, offer­ing both a moral les­son and an appeal­ing work of art. Nuri and the Whale takes a slight­ly dif­fer­ent approach. Ronit Chacham extrap­o­lates on a short selec­tion from the bib­li­cal book of Kohelet (Eccle­si­astes), divid­ing the nar­ra­tive into num­bered chap­ters and implic­it­ly chal­leng­ing the divide between pic­ture and chap­ter books. Moran Yogev’s lav­ish illus­tra­tions allude to Mid­dle East­ern artis­tic tra­di­tions and present con­vinc­ing char­ac­ters who speak to young read­ers on their own lev­el. This excep­tion­al book does not sim­pli­fy its mes­sage of gen­eros­i­ty and inter­gen­er­a­tional respect, but rather brings it to life as a core tzedakah.

Is the com­ple­tion of a mitz­vah con­tin­gent on ful­ly under­stand­ing its mean­ing? While this ques­tion may con­found even adults, it is almost bound to come up when teach­ing young chil­dren. Chacham con­fronts the issue as Nuri, a young boy, responds to hear­ing his father quote the verse, ​“Cast your bread on the water, and one day it will come back to you” (Kohelet 11:1). Nat­u­ral­ly, he inter­prets its some­what enig­mat­ic lan­guage lit­er­al­ly, throw­ing bread into the sea until one fish grows unnat­u­ral­ly large. When his well-inten­tioned act results in con­flict, he is con­fused. For­tu­nate­ly, Wise­whale, an arche­typ­al pater­nal fig­ure, takes the time to explain to Nuri the dif­fer­ence between obe­di­ence to his father and true com­pre­hen­sion. He does this not through direct instruc­tion, but by encour­ag­ing Nuri to draw infer­ences. Wise­whale thus sets the boy on the right path, remind­ing him that ​“there will be days to come when you will give and take — and you will be both hap­py and sad.”

Nuri and the Whale notably com­bines bib­li­cal and Tal­mu­dic sto­ries with Jew­ish folk­lore. Chil­dren may not imme­di­ate­ly asso­ciate Nuri’s tale with that of Jon­ah, caught in the bel­ly of the great fish, or with the leg­endary Joseph, who loved the Sab­bath and shared his wealth with his whole com­mu­ni­ty. Nev­er­the­less, these par­al­lels sit­u­ate Chacham’s and Yogev’s work in the larg­er realm of Jew­ish literature.

The book’s illus­tra­tions and design also dis­play a deep immer­sion in Jew­ish artis­tic her­itage. One two-page spread fea­tures the quote from Kohelet in Hebrew cal­lig­ra­phy, while the flo­ral bor­der around each pic­ture recalls medieval man­u­scripts. Word bub­bles with var­i­ous­ly col­ored fonts elab­o­rate on the main text, and a range of col­or tones con­nects char­ac­ters and scenery — from peo­ple, to ani­mals, to the nat­ur­al habi­tat they share.

When the book con­cludes, Nuri is an old man. Along the way, read­ers learn that peo­ple devel­op and change, and that both the young and old play dis­tinct roles in Jew­ish life. Giv­ing to oth­ers is not only a require­ment for those with great wealth, as Nuri points out, because ​“Some­times in life you’ll have every­thing and some­times you’ll have almost noth­ing.” It’s a mes­sage worth con­vey­ing to chil­dren, espe­cial­ly in a book as enchant­i­ng as this one.’  Emily Schneider, Jewish Book Council