Reading Between the Lines:

Snow in Jerusalem

by Amy Meltzer

(PJ Author & Parent)

Today we sat down to read Snow In Jerusalem by Deborah da Costa. It’s a story about two boys, one Jewish, and one Muslim, who fight over the same white cat. After an unexpected snowstorm, the boys conclude that they must share the cat and (spoiler alert!) her newborn kittens. Why? Because no one can prove who saw her first, and, as the Muslim boy declares, “She wants peace.” (Hmmmm…. do I detect a metaphor, perhaps?)

I was curious about how Ella would react to the story, since we haven’t spoken much about Israel or Jerusalem, and certainly not about the turmoil in the region.

“Did you like it?” I asked.

“Mmmm-hmmmm. A lot.”

I decided to probe a little. “What do you think the boys were fighting about?”

“A cat.”

“Yup, they were fighting about a cat. But do you think they were fighting about anything else?”

“Yes. They were fighting over who would get to keep the cat.”

“Anything else?”

Ella looked at me blankly. “The kittens?”

That one boy spoke Hebrew and one spoke Arabic; that one lived in the Jewish quarter and one lived in the Muslim quarter; that one boy wore a kippah and one boy’s mother wore a hijab; these points were completely lost on Ella. I hesitated. Should I say more? Is  it okay to let this be just a sweet story about a cat, much in the same way that to Ella, the song “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” is about counting, not flirting with a Nazi?

I thought back to my own childhood and what I learned about Israel. We collected coins in little blue boxes to buy trees and forests in the names of our loved ones. We sang Hatikvah and danced the hora and collected shelves full of  olive wood souvenirs brought back by grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles. We knew Israel was surrounded by enemies, but if there was a conflict brewing inside her borders, we never heard about it, and we certainly never talked about it. The world has changed a lot in the thirty years since I went to Hebrew school. For most of us, now the question isn’t do we mention the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to our children, but when, and of course, how.

Consequently, the first time I read Snow In Jerusalem, I admit to being a little dissatisfied. I thought it didn’t go far enough, even for my precious almost-5 year old who, I’m grateful, doesn’t know what the word ‘war’ means. I tried to come up with some simple way to explain to her why the boys were really fighting - why their graceful solution was in fact, so highly improbable.  But each time I opened my mouth, I was at an utter and total loss for words. Really, what could I possibly say?

And that was when I appreciated the beauty of this little book. I realized that by simply creating two characters, one Jewish and one Muslim, each with his own home, his own family, and his own voice, Da Costa has opened up a world to Ella that I never knew existed. Of course, five is too young to talk about the devastating headlines that rise out of the Middle East. (Sometimes I’m convinced that 40 is too young.) But it’s not too young to talk about conflict and competing narratives. And perhaps a cat and her kittens is a perfect way to start the conversation.

Comments? Ideas? Please share them at my website, www.amymeltzer.com, where you can also read my previous PJ columns.

Amy Meltzer is an award-winning writer and educator. She has worked in a myriad of Jewish educational settings, teaching and designing programs for day schools, supplementary schools, camps, wilderness schools and Hillel. She was the founding director of the Teva Learning Center, North America's foremost Jewish environmental education center.

Amy is the author of A Mezuzah on the Door, a 2008 AJL Notable Book for Young Readers. She lives in Western Massachusetts with her husband and two daughters.

The PJ Library™ program sends Jewish-content books and music on a monthly basis to families with children through age seven. Created by The Harold Grinspoon Foundation, The PJ Library is funded nationally in partnership with The Harold Grinspoon Foundation and local philanthropists/organizations.  To learn more, go to www.pjlibrary.org

This column was originally published on pjlibrary.org

Reprinted with permission of The PJ Library and Amy Meltzer.

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