Journey to the Land of Words
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Crossposted from Haaretz
Until a year ago, Ruvik Rosenthal was sure he had no imagination. Around age 10, he did start writing adventure stories, but at 12, “I had decided to become a journalist, to go for the real things.”
After years of writing specialized dictionaries, such as a comprehensive dictionary of slang and a compendium of phrases, he needed a change, and that led to a wonderful children’s book, “Hamasa Hamufla Leeretz Hamilim,” which loosely translates as “The Wonderful Journey to the Land of Words,” soon to be released by Keter. The focus is on the Hebrew language, but the plot is thick with adventures drawn from his imagination.
“It’s hard to describe what it’s like to write a dictionary; it’s about as close as you can get to Hell,” said Rosenthal. “After four and a half years of working on the “Milon Hatzirufim” (the dictionary of Hebrew idioms and phrases), while also working on other things of course, when the book was on the shelves in 2009, I said I need to do a 180-degree about-turn.”
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
