Alona Frankel is an author and illustrator renowned for over thirty children’s picture books. She is most famous for her classic series Once Upon a Potty (original Hebrew Sir hasirim; 1975; 1st English edition, 1980), which has sold millions of copies worldwide. Born in Kraków, Poland, Frankel settled in Israel in 1949. In 2005, she received the Sapir Prize for Literature and Yad Vashem’s Buchman Prize for her literary memoir Yalda (Girl; 2004). Her second memoir volume, Naara (Teen) appeared in 2009. Other major Frankel works include Sefer hapilpilim (The Family of Tiny White Elephants; 1980) and Sipur al nesiḥa (The Princess and the Caterpillar; 1983).
See the Mount of Olives and the Greek monastery.
Minarets and cupolas abound,
Squares of yellow houses like honeycomb.
The valley of Josephat, white, dry fields—
There in the dell, where it is…
To perform their work in the workshop for three complete years from the day of their entry, not to cease at all during this tenure, and not to be hired by another artisan, neither as an apprentice nor…