Customer Reviews

The Bible from Alef to Tav

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My son, Daniel who is now just three months from becoming a bar mitzvah, was the one who gave me the idea for this book in the early 90's. One day in synagogue, during the Torah reading, while I was following in my Hertz Pentateuch, he asked me what they were saying. I tried to whisper a simultaneous translation so he could understand. Then I got the idea! He needed his own Bible with all the stories in it in words he could understand as well as beautiful pictures to illustrate it. Thus, The Bible from Alef to Tav was hatched in Worcester, Massachusetts. What is unique about this Bible is that with each chapter, you also learn a Hebrew letter which is featured in the story for that chapter. A totally painless way of learning the alef-bet along with the stories in the Hebrew Bible. A great way to connect adults and children. It was originally meant for ages 4-8, but people have told me that their 10 and 12 year olds are reading it at bedtime. In fact, reading The Bible from Alef to Tav has become a bedtime ritual for many families. This is music to my ears as the author. Also, this book was named as a Finalist in the 1998 Jewish Book Awards in Children's Literature. Enjoy!

I bought this book to help me begin religious studies at home with my 6-year old daughter. I originally intended to read her one story a night, but she enjoyed the tales so much that she insisted on TWO stories every night. That's a ringing endorsement from a 6-year old!

My 6-year old and her 3-year old sister both demanded that they see the colorful illustrations while I read to them. And by the time we finished the book, they both could recite the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

Reading the book aloud was easy because the writing was so similar to the way I speak to my children anyways. And I appreciated the way that the author related the Bible stories to different activities. My daughter and I ended up discussing how people treat each other and how people feel about being treated in different ways.

This book was a joy to read, and I keep recommending it to all my friends.

When the publisher asked me to illustrate this work I jumped at the chance. As a young artist I planned to paint the entire Biblical canon. Now, about forty years later I had hardly painted my way out of Genesis, so this was a real opportunity to see what happens later on! Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity, and thank you to the many people who have expressed their enjoyment of the result. Michael Jacobs