"The book was the queen in our family,” says Eduard Shyfrin, former World Jewish Congress vice-president, physicist, PhD in metallurgy, entrepreneur, philanthropist, lecturer on Torah and Kabbalah — and now children’s author.
Shyfrin was born in the USSR; his family was not well off but still “I was surrounded by books and I started to read at three-and-a-half-years old. My parents had 6,000 or 7,000 books.”
Yesterday, he spoke about his extraordinary children’s book, Travels With Sushi in the Land of the Mind (White Raven), at Jewish Book Week. He has spoken at JBW before – about his adult book on Kabbalah – and the experience made a deep impression: “When I saw hundreds of Jewish people queuing for tickets for the various talks and there were not enough chairs for my full audience, it was a great encouragement. This is why I decided to support Jewish Book Week — we are the people of the book.”
Another Jewish hallmark, he says, is abstract thinking (Shyfrin believes faith in an invisible God fosters one’s abstract-thinking ability), which is why his new book is not just an exciting fairy-tale fantasy (exquisitely illustrated by Tomislav Tomic) but weaves in ideas from quantum physics, Torah and Kabbalah. “This book has layers of meaning,” he says. “My challenge was not to write an easy book but to write a meaningful book.”
He originally wrote Travels with Sushi for his grandchildren – who love sushi. “I often tell them fairy tales and I try to include a hidden lesson for them in each one.
“We have a duty to introduce children to God, Jewish history, science and art. To teach them to think and how to deal with crises because everyone experiences crises in life.” (He himself experienced one in 2002, which was when he turned to the study of Torah — “I think God wanted to give me a little kick.”)
The book is soon to be published in Hebrew and Shyfrin is keen to see what Israeli reviewers make of the hidden meanings: “Many people tell me Travels with Sushi is not just for children. I suspect they are right.”
Angela Kiverstein is the JC’s children’s books editor
