MEDIA – DafDaf, in Time for Purim

It is devoted to Purim, the cover the March issue of DafDaf, the Jewish magazine for kids. On a colourful background, the graders and the hamantaschen by Luisa Valenti immediately point the readers to the page by Benedetta Guetta, blogger and photographer, whose recipe of the montini is perfect for the Mishloach manot. In addition to dressing up and reading the story of Esther, Benedetta writes, “it is nice to cook good things with which to prepare the packages to be given to your loved ones.”
Related to Purim are also the pages “music, Maestra!”, written by the Hebrew scholar and musician Maria Teresa Milano: this month she has chosen “Esther”, an opera in three acts by Hugo Weisgall that was staged for the first time in 1993 at the New York City Opera. “Hugo Weisgall’s Esther is a big woman with a powerful voice. There are energetic dances and scenes of great impact.”
The main character of the pages “Here come the monsters” lives in water. “How would you feel if a huge and scary unspecified fish (perhaps a whale) swallowed you? Unceremoniously, in one big gulp. What would you do if you were to live in his huge and slimy body?”. And no, she is not talking about Pinocchio, the focus is on the book of Jonah, that begins with an escape…
And with the approaching of Spring here it comes the time of books and libraries, with the major events of the season: the largest international bookfair specializing in children’s literature, the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, the Festival of Jewish Books in Ferrara and the Salone del libro in Turin. This month on DafDaf there are the Biblioburro, the donkey-library that goes around in Colombia, where it sometimes crosses the Carreta Literaria. In London and Norway books have neither hooves nor wheels… they travel by sea.
Another riddle by the morà Dafdafà – Nedelia Tedeschi – is about a misterious musical instrument, while Luisa Valenti, “the” illustrator enchants everyone with a magic word: acquaritmosuperficie.
Economy takes on a different meaning when it is reinterpreted through the words of the Wise: “‘Who is a rich man?’ Asks Ben Zoma, one of the Masters of the Mishnah (one of the fundamental works of Jewish tradition). ‘He who is satisfied with what he has’,”
Expo is approaching and Milan will be invaded by thousands of people who come for the big occasion, but also by many… hives! Two pages are dedicated to the exhibition of urban hives, where it will be possible to see the work of both the queen bee that his industrious workers, resident in the city. And Rachele, nine years, from Turin answers the questions in “Io sono”.

Ada Treves twitter @atrevesmoked

(1st March, 2015)