About a year ago, Dror Israel*, embarked on a project of collecting and retelling the story of the Ethiopian Israeli community through their own eyes. We asked parents of Ethiopian students in our programs for at risk and underserved youth to participate in an oral history project with author Bat-Ami Melnik and set about creating a children’s book which could tell the story of Ethiopian aliyah that would be part of the growing.movement to transform how the Ethiopian narrative is told Israel.

We teamed up with artist Moran Yogev, who uses a unique aluminum-imprint style for her illustrations, and what came out of the collaborative process was a beautiful and riveting book, told from the point of view of Yerus, an Ethiopian girl who begins the trek to Israel by foot, before any aide arrived from Israel.

Yerus’ story has already reached dozens of classrooms (k-8) throughout Israel, has spawned a curriculum, board game and theatrical play for young children and is representing Israel in the international children’s book fair in Bologna, Italy. Now we think it’s time for Yerus to visit more of the Jewish world, which is why we’re translating her story into English. We need your help to get enough pre-orders and support to get Yerus’ story distributed in English!

*Dror Israel is a pioneering educational movement whose mission is to effect meaningful, long-term educational and social change in Israeli society in order to promote solidarity, social activism, democracy and equality. We aim to form the grassroots nucleus of an exemplary society in Israel based on the vision of the prophets of Israel and the founders of Zionism.

Dror Israel emphasizes participation from every sector of Israeli society, including Ethiopian and Russian immigrants, Arab Israelis, Druze and Bedouins, and middle class and working class communities. In the past decade, Dror Israel has established 16 Educators’ kibbutzim in the social and geographic periphery of Israel. There are currently 1,200 young adults living in these kibbutzim, all in their 20s and 30s, who work daily in the organization’s educational, cultural and social activities with over 100,000 children, teens and adults.