WHEN THE WORLD BECAME WHITE

In this debut collection from one of Israel's most promising young authors, Dalia Betolin-Sherman offers an unprecedented window into the disorienting but wondrous world of Ethiopian immigrants to the Jewish state

Dalia Betolin-Sherman recipient of the 2015 the Ministry of Culture Prize for Debut fiction In this debut collection from one of Israel's most promising young authors, Dalia Betolin-Sherman offers an unprecedented window into the disorienting but wondrous world of Ethiopian immigrants to the Jewish state. Her heroines are school-age girls who arrive in Israel as young children and grow up in the poorest areas of the country, speaking Hebrew with their peers as their parents slave away in factories to pay for rent and schoolbooks and the chickpeas and lentils they cook for dinner. In the mesmerizing title story, we are treated to two sisters' impressionistic depiction of their lives in a nine-story absorption center, where they practice gymnastics on the stairwell landing and argue about the color of God. In another story, “Circle of Friends,” a third-grader and her two best friends, all new immigrants, struggle to secure their place on the social ladder between the queen bees who rule the class and the untouchable Tamar with her runny nose and lice-infested hair. “Neve Eliyahu” begins with a description of a family home “in a caravan, which is not a real house, but more like a car, and my mother says that if it is a car then it should move already so we can see other places and live where everyone else lives.” In perhaps the most autobiographical story, “Bookcase,” the heroine spends her summer vacation working in a factory beside her mother, who scolds her: “Do you want to end up like me? To work like a dog in a place that's toxic? Do you also want to live like this, to have to take two buses to the other side of the earth just to earn pennies? Why don't you start writing something? Why is your notebook blank? Just a few letters, do you know what I could do if you gave me just a little bit of what you have?” Readers will rejoice that Dalia Sherman has filled the blank pages and offered us just a bit of what she has, showing us how our familiar lives might appear through foreign eyes. From her descriptions of the surreal industrial landscape to the cruelty of schoolyard antics, Sherman's exquisite prose captures the frustrations and bewilderment of the older generation and the curiosity and awe of the younger, united by a shared sense of upheaval and hope as they start their lives again in a new land. Dalia Betolin-Sherman was born in Ethiopia in 1979. In 1984 she traveled on foot through Sudan and immigrated to Israel with her parents and sister. Sherman has degrees in social work and creative writing, and she lives with her husband and children in Tel Aviv.