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Charming Israeli children’s weekly edited by Dov Noy. Written in a simple almost biblical Hebrew with numerous illustrations and photographs covering a wide variety of subjects. Although the topics are varied and often detailed, the approach, by modern standards, is innocent. There are biographies, tales which draw upon both traditional and modern sources, poems, and historical accounts. The Hebrew is both vowelled and unvowelled. Illustrations are black and white, hand drawn, and delightful. Among the illustrators is the renowned artist Nahum Gutman (1898-1980), whose drawings here have been described as being in a specific and safe line and demonstrating a rather naïve atmosphere. The final, largest volume, the only one with continuous pagination, has 604 pages.
The editor, Dov Noy (b. 1920) was a scholar in Jewish folklore. Born in Kolomyja, Poland, he graduated from a Polish secondary school, and then immigrated to Palestine where he began his academic studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He interrupted his studies to volunteer for military service in the British Army Royal Engineers during World War II, returning to the Hebrew University to complete his master's degree in Talmud, Jewish History, and Bible studies in 1946. He directed educational and cultural activities in the Cyprus Detention camps of Jewish refugees and worked there until the camps' liberation in 1948. For the next three years he served as editor of the leading Israeli children's weekly Davar le-Yeladim.
In 1955 he began his teaching career at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where he taught aggadah, folk literature, general folklore, and Yiddish. He became professor and incumbent of the Chair of Folklore and Hebrew Literature. Noy's contribution to Jewish folklore has been pioneering. He founded and directed the Haifa Ethnological Museum and Folklore Archives (1956–1982) and edited the Israel Folktale Archives Publications series until 1981. He founded the Israel Folklore Archives, the largest treasure of Jewish folktales recorded in Israel. He was director of the Hebrew University Folklore Research Center from 1968 and edited Studies, its journal. He served as the Encyclopaedia Judaica departmental editor for folklore. He also trained a generation of researchers and students to tape and collect folk stories from all the various Jewish ethnic groups. He started the folklore section at Haifa University within the department of Hebrew Literature. From 1985, he served as professor of Yiddish Folklore at Bar-Ilan University. |
