A Literary Scavenger Hunt in Jerusalem

For those of you who visit here regularly, you know that we at Life Is Like a Library are super fans of Israel ScaVentures and the Experiential Guidebook, as evidenced by how it much we love to talk about them:

The International Writers Festival 2018 (May 2018)

Yet Another Beautiful Day in Israel (December 2018)

Jerusalem Prizes (May 2019)

Today is founder, director, writer, and all-around neat woman Tali Kaplinski Tarlow's birthday. So, in honor of this auspicious day, and in appreciation for all the adventures I've had since I received a review copy of the Guidebook, here is

"A Literary Scavenger Hunt in Jerusalem" 

(Answers will be available in the next blog post.)

The author of A Tale of Love and Darkness grew up on the street that bears the same name he does.

This institution was established in 1892 and houses millions of items in many languages.

Stop for a coffee in this café named after a book. 

This location at Ma'aravim 9 is dedicated to a distinct literary form.

The Israeli Antiquities Authority Library is housed here. 

English readers looking for second-hand books flock to this store on Ya'avets (off Jaffa Road) whose name includes the Hebrew words for book and another item.

The house of this Nobel Prize Winner for Literature is near the American Embassy on a street with another author's original last name.

Although there is a street with his name, the father of Modern Hebrew lived on a street named after an African country.

In the courtyard of the Holman Hunt House on HaNeviim, there is a small house that was home to this iconic Israeli poet who was inspired by the view of the garden from the window:

Conspiracy of spring
a man awakes and through the window sees
a pear tree blossoming,
and instantly the mountain weighing on his heart
dissolves and disappears.

O you will understand! Is there a grieving man
who can hold on stubbornly
to a single flower that withered
in last year's autumn gale,
when spring consoles and with a smile
presents him with a giant wreath of flowers
at his very window?


T.E. Lawrence and John le Carre stayed at this landmark on Nablus Road that now houses a noted bookstore. 

Israel's greatest modern poet wrote two collections with Jerusalem in the title. 

Laura S. Schor's The Best School in Jerusalem is about this girls' school, currently located in Rehavia.

This building was erected in 1902 and originally housed "The Midrash Abarbanel Library and the Joseph Archives." It now shares its name with its location.

NOTE: This is a work-in-progress. Because of the current "matsav" (COVID-19 pandemic), I was not able to go to many of the places I hoped to visit. Hopefully there will be an update in the near future.

And finally, as you go on your hunt, look for these Real Cats of Jerusalem:

Happy Birthday Tali!
Happy Reading!

A Million Dreams Never Dreamed

There are times, and they become more frequent as the years go by, that I look at the world with quite a cynical eye and lament that I am becoming old and bitter.

Then, I read a book like Dreams Never Dreamed (Toby Press, 2020), and know that no one can read this book and remain a cynic. Its subtitle is "A Mother's Promise that Transformed Her Son's Breakthrough into a Beacon of Hope," and it is written by the father, Kalman Samuels.

I first became familiar with Shalva, the Israeli Association for the Care and Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities because of the Shalva Band. A music therapist formed a band made up of "persons with disabilities," and the group almost made it to the finals of Eurovision.



And while Shalva Band sang about "A Million Dreams," Shalva itself started with a promise and a dream. Kalman and Malki Samuel's son Yossi was a healthy baby until he received a faulty DPT vaccine. His situation deteriorated until he was both deaf and blind. The Samuels moved from Israel to New York to find Yossi the resources he needed, and then back to Israel. Malki Samuels made a pact with God: "If You ever decide to help my Yossi, I will dedicate my life to helping so many other mothers of children with disabilities whom I know are crying with me for their children."

Yossi was later known as "the Heller Keller of Israel," as he learned to sign, read braille, and recognize the make and model of a car by its door handle. It was now time to make good on the pact, and Malki wanted to "create a center that will provide parents and families with what we never had -- a program that will care for their challenged children after school each day, giving the child therapy and a good time, and giving the family a chance to live a normal life."

Shalva started in an apartment in the Samuels' neighborhood, and eventually needed a bigger facility. Kalman Samuels did the the fundraising for the organization, travelling to meet donors and promote Shalva. Soon the demand for Shalva's services was so great, that it was time for a new facility.

With dedication to purpose and infinite patience and fortitude (the bureaucracy in Israel is mind boggling, and there were multiple lawsuits and injunctions against the proposed building), a gorgeous, huge facility was built with attention to every detail. It houses facilities for all kinds of therapies, a pool, a respite floor so children can stay over and parents can have a break, a library, a cafe that is open to the public, an employment workshop, and an emergency shelter for those with disabilities. The building is filled with color and art.

As and for Yossi? He met President George W. Bush, visited the Volvo factory in Sweden, and rode an elephant in Thailand. "He is blind, deaf, and cannot walk, but he never loses his zest for life, never ceases to dream new dreams and to make them happen."

As is often the case, fact is as unbelievable as fiction, and the book chronicles the story of an amazing family with incredible determination.  The Samuels have seven children, and they are all involved in Shalva (youngest child Sara plays guitar in the Shalva band). You will find yourself routing for Yossi and for Shalva throughout the book, and you will marvel at how so many dreams were realized.

As for the Real Cats of Israel, who knows what they are dreaming?

Happy Reading!