Chil­dren’s

Keep­ing Israel Safe: Serv­ing in the Israel Defense Forces

Bar­bara Sofer
  • Review
By – February 13, 2012
This title fills a void in children’s lit­er­a­ture about Israel. With the inter­est that Israel’s 60th anniver­sary brings, it will sure­ly gar­ner atten­tion. This short paper­back book tells you every­thing you would want to know about the Israeli mil­i­tary, in kid-friend­ly lan­guage. The author has accom­plished this in an orig­i­nal way with the intro­duc­tion of four teenage friends who meet at the end of camp every year for ham­burg­ers. The four teens are seniors this year and will be going in the mil­i­tary after grad­u­a­tion, so they dis­cuss what branch they want to join. The book pro­ceeds in chap­ters and cov­ers the his­to­ry of the IDF and the var­i­ous branch­es of ser­vice, such as the Air Force, the Navy, the Intel­li­gence Ser­vice, and the Army. It also cov­ers Alter­na­tive Ser­vice (Sherut Leu­mi). Each of the teens selects a dif­fer­ent ser­vice, so this gives a per­son­al slant to the branch­es, and allows us to fol­low their choic­es. There are appeal­ing pho­tos that relate to the text both in black and white and col­or. The book also includes the struc­ture of the Israel Defense Forces and gives the mil­i­tary ranks in both in Eng­lish and Hebrew. Ages 7 – 12.
Bar­bara Sil­ver­man had an M.L.S. from Texas Woman’s Uni­ver­si­ty. She worked as a children’s librar­i­an at the Cor­pus Christi Pub­lic Libraries and at the Cor­pus Christi ISD before retir­ing. She worked as a vol­un­teer at the Astor Juda­ic Library of the Lawrence Fam­i­ly JCC in La Jol­la, CA. Sad­ly, Bar­bara passed away is 2012.

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