One Smart Cookie Custom for Shavuot from Libya

Are you looking for a new, engaging way to get across the meaning of Shavuot? Try a Libyan custom that's certainly not cookie cutter but literally uses cookies to illustrate the essence of Shavuot.

Here's the deal. Libyan Jews create a child's cookie necklace by baking cookies in the shape of the 10 Commandments, a prayer shawl and even a ladder -- symbolizing Moses' climbing up Mount Sinai to receive the two most famous tablets in the world. Each cookie has a hole on top so that a cord can thread them together into an edible bauble. How many cookies? A baker's dozen? Your guess is as good as mine. What's important is turning each baking session into a fun lesson. For example, 10 commandment cookies (and I want to thank Bible Belt Balabusta for creating the cookies shown here). While baking, ask your students/children how many commandments they can name. Have a prize ready for the winner who can name the most. Now go to the next level -- what does each commandment mean? Can you create cookies in different shapes representing the meaning of the first five commandments? If the answer is yes, please send me photos.





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I Have a New Book Coming Out with a Tie-in to Israel

With Yom Ha'Atzmaut around the corner I can't think of a better time to tell you about my new book. Set on a kibbutz in Israel, it's called Stork's Landing and it will be coming out this August.

Stork's Landing is the story of Yaffa, a beautiful stork who breaks her wing on a kibbutz fishpond net and can never fly again. Discovered by a little girl named Maya, who together with her father and other kibbutz members carefully nurture and watch over her, Yaffa overcomes her disability and achieves a new, fulfilling role in life. This sensitively told nature tale focuses on the Jewish value of caring for animals, while at the same time subtly incorporates issues of adoption and acceptance of those with differences. 

I am very excited about this book and am flying to the States in November to promote it during Jewish Book Month. Right now it looks like I'll be in New York, Boston, Baltimore, Rockville (MD), and Houston. Please contact me if you would like me to appear in your school with an interactive presentation on the book, that naturally includes a reading of the story. In the meantime, Happy Yom Ha'Atzmaut.
Tami