Image of the Week: The Song of the Shepherdess
© D. Yael Bernhard
Meet Gilah, daughter of Ya'akov, who I introduced in last week's post. Gilah is the second character in my picture book, The Life of an Olive. The year is 77 CE, and Gilah strums a lyre as she tends the family flock, singing of the beautiful temple in Jerusalem that has fallen seven years prior, causing her family to flee to the north. To this very day, the fall of the Second Temple is still lamented on the Jewish day of mourning, Tisha B'Av – for with that temple fell Jewish self-governance and the rights of the people of Israel – not the modern State of Israel, but the nation that existed for centuries prior to the Greek and Roman empires.
Throughout those ancient times of upheaval and change, olive trees were inextricably interwoven with people, growing along with their civilizations – indeed, driving that growth with the precious oil that lubricated the wheels of history. Olive oil was used to anoint kings, as a source of light, and as a staple in cooking. Its fruit was pickled and eaten; its dense pits and fiber mash left over from pressing were burned as fuel. The leaves of the olive tree made medicine, and the wood was a fine material for carving utensils. Even the pruned branches were made into charcoal – for olive trees are dependent upon human hands to prune them, else they cannot thrive. With skillful pruning, an olive tree can live for over 2000 years or even longer. Thus olives and humans are interdependent, and these fascinating trees have been part of the unfolding of history wherever they grow.
This illustration depicts the humble beginning of the book's main character: an olive sapling, standing near that plump sheep on the right, swaying in the wake of the woolly tail that has absentmindedly swatted it while grazing among the rocks. Above the little tree is the branch of its "parent", from whence came the pit that is the origin of our trembling protagonist. The sky and foreground are left featureless in order to accommodate text. Gilah is loosely based on a lovely girl named Yemima, who I met while picking olives in Israel as part of my research for the book. When my daughter tired of picking, Yemima sat in the olive grove with her on an upturned olive crate; they drew pictures in their laps as the pitter patter of falling olives surrounded them like intermittent raindrops. Both girls were ten years old, but Yemima seemed older. As for the lyre she plays in the illustration, I struggled to find a picture of one from this time period, and in the end could only approximate its basic shape.
Wait til you see how this olive tree grows, how massive its trunk will become after the first few centuries; how its branches curve into fantastic shapes, its bark into bulges, its trunk into folds and cracks. Maybe next week I'll fast forward a thousand years and feature a spread from the Crusades. The tree was still barely in its prime then, even as whole empires rose and fell around it.
Want to learn more about olive trees and the Galilee? You can order a signed copy of The Life of an Olive from my webstore, find it on Amazon, or request it at your local library (please do! – a hardcover edition is available). The book is written for children ages 7-11 – but I won't tell anyone if you order it for yourself. Personally, I've never outgrown picture books, and probably never will.
D Yael Bernhard