Back in the day (c 1976), when I flacked for Tel Aviv University, Friends of the University getting the Grand Tour would ask what they could do for Israel.
Having tried to teach school in Zefat -- I am not a teacher, lacking all the skills and attributes teachers must possess -- I would suggest that they send childrens books to the youngsters.
MISTAKE.
I was reminded of this the other day when a local tv station went begging for books for children.
New books.
Gently used books.
The talking heads fronting the program said that every child needs a book.
My first thought was Get the kid a library card; there are hundreds of books in the many county libraries for which I (willingly) pay taxes.
Then I thought a second time.
I always had my own books (as well as a library card).
My three also had their own books – and library cards.
Even my three grands have their own books.
I confess the twins (three years old) are not mature enough to get their hands on library books.
I know the value of book ownership.
Back to Israel and …
It turns out that the government of the People of the Book TAXES used books.
The people were giving the books to the schools.
Steimatzky, Israel's largest book store (and other stuff) chain paid taxes when its new products for sale were imported, and it paid a Value Added Tax (ma'am) when someone bought the book. The government made out "like a bandit."
But USED BOOKS for use in schools? Especially in schools away from the more affluent areas of the state: Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem.
In my south Florida area, one of the tv stations has an on-going book drive, with the idea that every child should own his or her own book.
Mind, we have lots of taxpayer-funded "free" lending libraries scattered around the county. No community is far from a county library. The county is mostly urban; I have not seen a bookmobile.
Zefat, while (once) Israel's second holiest city, is not a wealthy community.
Some of the children at Canaan Bet, where I pretended to teach, had one good meal a day -- at school. My students were not even poor cousins to the Rothschilds.
Imagine giving a child a book of his or her very own.
A book can teach a child – and adults, too – a number of things.
How to read; start simple (Run, dog, run) and work up.
How to add, subtract, multiply, and divide.
But more important than that, book ownership teaches responsibility.
It doesn’t really make much difference if the book is Little Red Riding Hood or a Collegiate Dictionary; the main thing is that the child has a book of his or her own.
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.
