Dov Noy

Zikaron Hero: Dov Noy

Dov Noy is someone you’ve probably never heard of, who does something you may not have known that anyone does. Still, he is an important zikaron hero. Dov Noy is one of the world’s foremost authorities on Jewish folklore. He collects and studies Jewish folk stories and fairy tales. Dov Noy came to Israel from Poland in 1938. Today he lives in Jerusalem. During World War II he served in the British army. After the war he continued his education at the Hebrew University, Yale, and then Indiana University. In 1956 Dov Noy founded the Haifa Ethnological Museum and Folklore Archives. In 2004 he won the Israel prize. Folktales are a special piece of history of a people, but they are almost never written down. They are told out loud and passed from generation to generation. Jewish folktales have moved from country to country, continent to

continent, language to language as the Jewish people moved around the world. Because the tellers of these tales were ordinary people, not important rabbis or scholars, the stories fell below the radar and were not recorded. When he was a graduate student at Indiana University Dov studied under Stith Thompson, the founder of the modern study of folklore. Dov Noy realized that large pieces of tradition were being lost. He decided to devote his life to rescuing Jewish folktales before they vanished. The first step he took in accomplishing this mission was to found the Israel Folktale Archives in 1955. He was the founder of the entire field of Jewish folklore and the teacher of every younger Jewish folklore scholar throughout the world. When someone tells you a Jewish story, we probably know it because of the work of Dov Noy. He has collected and cataloged more than 23,000 stories. That, too, is an act of zikaron.

Zikaron Activity: A Folktale

The author learned this story from Howard Schwartz, who learned it from Dov Noy.

The Bird of Happ iness

There was a special light that shone when God created the world. It disappeared when Adam and Eve left the Garden. God took a piece of this light, put it in a crystal and gave it to Adam and Eve to light the darkness. The crystal was passed from generation to generation. Noah used this crystal to light the inside of the ark. It was passed from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob and made it to Solomon, who used it to light the inside of the Temple. When the Temple was destroyed it disappeared. Aaron was a Jewish boy. He and his family were escaped slaves walking through a desert. One night Aaron had a dream of being lost in a sandstorm and being rescued by a large white bird. When he awoke he found a glowing crystal in his hand. He hung it from a leather thong around his neck. It glowed only when they were walking in the right direction. It led them to pools of water and oases filled with fruit. It led them to a great city. They learned that the king had died and the city needed a new one. To find the new king they released the Bird of Happiness. When it landed on Aaron’s shoulder, the boy who had been a slave became the new king. It was the bird of his dream. The people dressed him in robes and put a crown on his head. His family now lived in a palace. The crystal became a guide. It would glow when the right answer was yes. It would remain dark if the right answer was no. One hour a day Aaron sneaked away to a shack. He took off his royal garb and put on the rags he had worn as a slave. He wanted to remember where he had come from. He also gave thanks every day for the blessings that the Bird of Happiness brought.

1. Why did the boy put on his slave clothes every day? 2. H ow is this a Jewish thing to do? 3. What does this story teach us about the power of zikaron?