CULTURE – THE NEW ISSUE OF DAFDAF
For Our Kids, for Our Culture

By Ada Treves

With a little more than four years of life DafDaf, the Italian Jewish monthly for children has just brought to print its fifty-second issue. It is not meant only for the kids of the twenty one Jewish communities of Italy, and every month it has pages on many different subjects, all with a Jewish twist. So number 52 after the cover by Luisa Valenti – it reminds everyone that Winter is finally here – the pages devoted to music remind us the origin of the Israeli Opera, just before a well known British character reveals it origins. Paddington, the beloved bear, in fact has a Jewish origin: its creator, Michael Bond, had been inspired by the sight of the kids of the Kindertransport, arriving with their small suitcases, and a nametag around their neck. Cold is stopping outdoor activities? A well known Italian writer, Nadia Terranova, every month suggests three titles, carefully chosen among classics, picture books and novelties. After the Golem, another peculiar character from the Jewish tradition has come to visit the pages, and there is also the second number of the economic pages, with the international Expo as this month’s subject. Stamping is another activity that will make those long days at home interesting, and DafDaf’s morà, Dafdafà, has new questions for the readers.
Since it is not only Jewish children that like reading histories from the Bible, and all kids love stories, DafDaf is distributed with Pagine Ebraiche, the main paper of the Union of the Jewish Communities of Italy, hence arriving in thousands of households in Italy and abroad, and it is distributed also in the Jewish schools and in festivals, book fairs and in all places where there is an interest for Jewish culture.