Osnat and Her Dove: The True Story of the World's First Female Rabbi [Osnat Barzani]

Ages 4 to 8, Grades P to 3

Osnat was born five hundred years ago – at a time when almost everyone believed in miracles. But very few believed that girls should learn to read.

Yet Osnat's father was a great scholar whose house was filled with books. And she convinced him to teach her. Then she in turn grew up to teach others, becoming a wise scholar in her own right, the world's first female rabbi!

Some say Osnat performed miracles – like healing a dove who had been shot by a hunter! Or saving a congregation from fire!

But perhaps her greatest feat was to be a light of inspiration for other girls and boys; to show that any person who can learn might find a path that none have walked before.

About the Author

Sigal Samuel is an award-winning novelist and journalist. Currently a Staff Writer at Vox, she previously worked as Religion Editor at The Atlantic, Opinion Editor at the Forward, and Associate Editor at the Daily Beast. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. The Mystics of Mile End, her debut novel, was nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award and won the Canadian Jewish Literary Award and the Alberta Book Publishing Award. Sigal hails from an Iraqi Jewish family in Montreal, and now lives in Washington, DC.

Vali Mintzi is an illustrator of children's books, a graphic designer, and puppetry designer. She was born in Romania and she graduated from the Bezalel Academy of Art in Jerusalem where she lives and works. The New York Times praised her artwork for a picture book by Rita Jahan Foruz, saying: "The Girl With a Brave Heart is strikingly enhanced by Vali Mintzi's exquisite naïf illustrations, which seem a happy meeting of Gauguin and mid-career Matisse."