Natalie Goldman has dreamed of writing a book since she was a little girl. And now, the Blue Valley High senior is an author. Goldman recently self-published a children's book, "Olive Loves Being Jewish."
The book follows the character Olive on a tour of the Michael Klein Collection at The Temple, Congregation B'nai Jehudah (where Goldman and her parents, Lauren and Stuart Goldman, are members). It was inspired by Goldman's Girl Scout project for her Gold Award.
When scouts start thinking about project ideas, they’re asked to first think about an issue in the community they’d like to solve. Goldman had several ideas before she decided to conduct tours of the Klein Collection as a way of fighting antisemitism.
“I realized that one of the most important issues to me was combating antisemitism, and [I wanted] to do that through education,” she said. “I think that's one of the most powerful ways to… fight antisemitism — to teach kids early on that Jewish people are not so scary and different, and that you can treat people with kindness even when they're different from you.”
Goldman worked with Abby Magariel, curator of the Klein Collection, to develop her tour. That was a process that took several months and included picking out which pieces of the collection Goldman wanted to focus on and then writing her tour script. That proved to be a bit challenging, as she had to look at items she’d always been familiar with in a new way.
“I had to think about these artifacts as if I had never seen them before. It's really hard to do when you're raised Jewish, to kind of remove yourself from the Jewish perspective and try to explain something to somebody that they've never learned about before,” she said.
Goldman used her family and some non-Jewish friends as a sounding board to refine her tour. She ended up focusing on four areas: Torah, Shabbat, tzedakah and b’nai mitzvahs.
Aside from showcasing pieces of the Klein Collection — including a yad, a Torah scribe set, Shabbat candlesticks and a kiddush cup — Goldman made the tour interactive by bringing pieces of her own Judaica that the scouts could examine and touch. She showed them the yad she used for her bat mitzvah ceremony and her bat mitzvah invitations, along with a toy Shabbat set she played with as a child.
Goldman also planned a couple of activities for the girls, like decorating tzedakah boxes and painting rocks that they then put in the Mitzvah Garden.
Goldman led four tours of the Klein Collection this year for several elementary-aged Girl Scout troops.
“I wanted it to be younger Girl Scouts because I think learning about kindness and learning about other cultures is such a big part of Girl Scouts, and I wanted to share that with them,” she said.
It turned out that her tours made an impression on adults as well. As part of her Gold Award project, Goldman had to see what kind of impact her project was making, so she sent surveys to the parents who accompanied their children on the tours.
“(The parents) said that the kids learned a lot,” she said. “On the tours, I got a lot of questions from the parents, as well as from the kids, which was kind of tricky, because they asked totally different kinds of things.”
One thing that Goldman learned from her project was how important it is to expose children to other cultures in a positive way, and how much of your lessons they remember.
“I think we always think of kids as having a really short memory. But they really do remember, for a long time… If you try to make it engaging, if you try to make it fun, they will remember, versus if you just try to throw things at them, and they don't really know what's going on,” she said.
A requirement of Goldman’s project was sustainability, focusing on how the lessons from her tour would live on after she had finished her project and received her award.
“You can't just do this whole project and then forget about it,” she said.
Goldman considered creating flashcards to give to the girls who took the tour but wanted something more fun and engaging. She thought of a book because it could replicate her tour but also could stand on its own — readers could experience the Klein Collection without having to physically go to B’nai Jehudah.
“Olive Loves Being Jewish” focuses on the same four themes Goldman did in her tours, and in each section, Goldman picked out two or three of her favorite artifacts to feature. There’s a photo of each artifact with a short description, and then, on the opposite pages, Olive talks about the objects and how she uses them in her life.
Goldman wrote the book herself (aside from the descriptions of the artifacts, which came from the Klein Collection), and her friend Madison Urbanek, a fellow Blue Valley student, illustrated it. Goldman started on the book this past June and finished it in August. Her mom, Lauren Goldman, self-published the book on Amazon.
Goldman, who will start college this fall, said she plans to continue writing, perhaps majoring in English or creative writing.
“Having done something so young, I feel like there's a lot of impostor syndrome that comes with it,” she said. “Especially because it's not like I published a whole novel. It's just a kid's book, but I'm still proud of it. I think I'm more proud of what it represents…. I'm more proud of myself for publishing a book that could be used to educate people, and spread kindness, and spread understanding about Judaism, than I am proud of myself for just writing a book.”
“Olive Loves Being Jewish” is available for sale on Amazon and in B’nai Jehudah’s Sisterhood gift shop. Proceeds from sales of the book will go to the Sisterhood and to the Klein Collection. Goldman will be signing copies on Sunday, Dec. 4, at B’nai Jehudah, starting at 8:30 a.m. and resuming after Sunday school lets out.