S/O Diverse Jewish Kids Books

michimochi

Wed, May 03 2023, 11:28 pm

Love that someone is looking for this! It always upset me that only a certain kind of Jew is represented in 99% of frum children's books out there.

Rubber Ducky

Wed, May 03 2023, 11:36 pm

seeker wrote:

I don't know if I'm remembering correctly because I last saw it a very long time ago but didn't Savta Simcha have a brown (maybe yemenite?) little boy in some of the books?

Ezra. And his sister Tehilla. They're in more than one of the Savta Simcha books.

seeker wrote:

I think it's a huge deficit in our literature scene. We have so much in so many ways and yet it's hard to find you if you're not white/of European origin. I mean as a regular player, not as a plot point.

Agree.

amother

Cyan

Thu, May 04 2023, 12:25 am

michimochi wrote:

Love that someone is looking for this! It always upset me that only a certain kind of Jew is represented in 99% of frum children's books out there.

To be fair, white Jews are something like 99% of the American frum population. But I am happy that many books are demonstrating more inclusivity.

amother

Mocha

Thu, May 04 2023, 12:29 am

amother Cyan wrote:

To be fair, white Jews are something like 99% of the American frum population. But I am happy that many books are demonstrating more inclusivity.

There's also pretty much only one kind of frum looking Jew in these books.

amother

Crystal

Thu, May 04 2023, 12:30 am

amother Cyan wrote:

To be fair, white Jews are something like 99% of the American frum population. But I am happy that many books are demonstrating more inclusivity.

I wouldn’t consider Persians, bukharians or Temanim to be “white”.

seeker

Thu, May 04 2023, 12:53 am

amother Cyan wrote:

To be fair, white Jews are something like 99% of the American frum population. But I am happy that many books are demonstrating more inclusivity.

Yes, that's why I would think it contrived if every single book prominently featured a token Black, Asian, Latinx, and physically disabled character in each picture, which we do see a lot of in mainstream media. BUT it's equally unrealistic for these people to be NOWHERE or almost nowhere. And a little Jewish kid with brown skin shouldn't have to see people like him in less than 1% of the pictures in his whole life. He also doesn't deserve to be looked at like a unicorn by the white kids who haven't seen that 1% book yet and didn't realize that Jews come in different colors.

amother

Feverfew

Thu, May 04 2023, 4:32 am

Lots of Israeli hebrew frum kids books have more diversity, but that probably reflects the fact that Israel's jewish community is much has much more racial diversity then the untited states.
That is changing, but still - most of the sephardic jews and mizrachi went to Israel, and The US is majority Ashkenazi

I have great recommendations in hebrew if you are interested.

SG18

Thu, May 04 2023, 5:42 am

amother Feverfew wrote:

I would love recommendations, please!

GLUE

Mon, May 29 2023, 1:53 am

seeker wrote:

There was a women of Syrian decent who felt this way and she wrote a kids book about a Jewish Syrian family, the Syrian part was part of the book not the main force.

In Biography's there is also a gap, I found one book about a family fleeing Iraq in 1940's. I have seen some articles were someone wrote about his grandfather who came from Italy and how he had to learn English and Yiddish in NY but no books.

When reading Jewish American history novel's for the Frum world I have only seen about people who came from Europe mostly Russia. Are there anything else out there?

amother

Carnation

Wed, Jun 07 2023, 11:59 am

"Benny the Bus gets the job done" and "Azriel the airplane follows instructions" by Rochel burstyn both have illustrations that include all shades of skin - and disabilities.

amother

Celeste

Wed, Jun 07 2023, 12:18 pm

farmom wrote:

Does yossi and laibel on the ball have a kid with darker skin? I feel like it should but don't remember

It definitely has a kid in a wheelchair. It also discusses how everyone is different and that's ok. I don't remember different skin colors necessarily.

IIRC let's stay safe has a child in a wheelchair too. If I find my copy soon I'll update this comment.

Reality

Wed, Jun 07 2023, 1:14 pm

GLUE wrote:

Do you know Syrian Jews? A Jew from Syria looks exactly like a Jew from Russia.

GLUE

Wed, Jun 07 2023, 3:03 pm

Reality wrote:

Do you know Syrian Jews? A Jew from Syria looks exactly like a Jew from Russia.

I was talking about culture wise not skin color.

There is a lack of books, at lest here in the US could be Israel is different, about Jewish that are not from Europe. You can find one here and one there(most of them short stories)but most of them are about stuff that happened many years ago, a modern family is practically unheard of.

Biography's are also hard to find if you are looking for someone who is not from European origin. Is nobody interested in reading such books or is nobody interested in writing them?