MEDIA DafDaf, Colors for the Summer

By Ada Treves

Summer, holidays, vacation… long days to fill. So, young readers, fill your sketch-book with ideas and colours, it will be a joy and a thing of beauty. That is the idea conveyed by the cover of the new issue of DafDaf, the Jewish magazine for kids. Number 58 is the second issue of this last Summer series, which every year offers young readers pages that are even more playful than usual. So the cover relates to the idea, explained in page 16, of a “non-school diary,” or a “book of non-tasks” to be filled with… anything. Colours, drawings, notes, collage, there’s no limit to Summer art.

Special pages are inspired by “Magic, angels and demons in Jewish tradition,” the exhibition organized by the Musée d’art and d’histoire du judaïsme in Paris. Beliefs of ancient origin, traditions that speak about the many invisible and powerful spirits who inhabit the world: angels, demons, death, and more… So readers can play with the amulet of Yoseph, recognize a Hamsah or draw some characters of the Sefer ha-Raziel malakh (the book of the angel Raziel), while reasoning on the meaning of the word “belief” or rediscovering the affinity with the culture of Arab countries.

Fixed appointment are, as usual, the pages devoted to books, and this month Nadia Terranova has two different roles: she is both the author of those pages that in every issue suggests a picture book, a classic and a novel and the author of a new book, just published by Einaudi Ragazzi. Morà Dafdafà tells stories of the prophets while in Florence, during the second round of the Italian Limmud, DafDaf was among the protagonists, thanks to Odelia Liberanome.

Would this be enough? Roberta Anau this month would responds to the Italian saying “O mangi la minestra o salti la finestra” (eat this soup or jump out of the window): with her, everything is magical, and the onion soup recipe which was a classic of her grandmother, Amalia, is impossible to resist.