Around the World in One Shabbat

Gr 1—3—On Friday morning, Avi and Rachel accompany their grandmother to the market in Jerusalem to purchase the ingredients for their Sabbath meal. In Buenos Aires, Alicia and her sister help to make challah. Leyla and David watch as their mother lights the Sabbath candles in Istanbul, and Isaac listens to his grandfather recite the blessing over the wine in St. Petersburg, Russia. Young girls in France and America, and a boy in Germany, celebrate Shabbat in the synagogue while children in Casablanca, Thailand, and India spend Saturday afternoon with their families. The book concludes with Avi and Rachel, saying good-bye to Shabbat through the havdalah ceremony. A full page of text in a small font narrates each family's experience and is accompanied by pleasant watercolors illustrating the rituals and the unique settings. The Shabbat blessings, in Hebrew and English, are integrated nicely into the text. While Tami Lehman-Wilzig's Passover Around the World (2007) and Hanukkah Around the World (2009, both Kar-Ben) are more comprehensive, Bernhard successfully provides an introduction to Shabbat rituals, prayers, and customs, and many vibrant Jewish communities.—Rachel Kamin, North Suburban Synagogue Beth El, Highland Park, IL