Yonah and the Mikveh Fish:
a childrens book
by Haviva Ner-David

Meet Yonah, a quirky kid obsessed with fish, who is about to start kindergarten.
a childrens book
by Haviva Ner-David
Meet Yonah, a quirky kid obsessed with fish, who is about to start kindergarten.
Meet Yonah, a quirky kid obsessed with fish, who is about to start kindergarten. The day before school starts, Yonah’s parents take her to the mikveh, a ritual immersion pool, to mark her transition from preschool to kindergarten. When her brother, who also went to the mikveh when he was starting kindergarten, tells her she’ll love the fish at the mikveh, she is excited to go. But when she goes into the pool to dunk, she can’t find the fish. Was her brother just teasing? Read Yonah and the Mikveh Fish to find out!.
Yonah and the Mikveh Fish was born from the desire of Rabbi Haviva Ner-David and Cantor Rachel Stock Spilker, both involved in the open mikveh movement, to introduce the ritual of full body mikveh immersion to children and their families. Mikveh is an experiential and meaningful option for people of all ages to mark transitions, significant occasions, and life cycle events.
Over the past twenty years, there has been a mikveh renaissance in the progressive Jewish world. Open community mikvaot (plural of mikveh) — where people can immerse how and when they choose – are popping up around the globe. By following lovable Yonah as she prepares for kindergarten at the mikveh, we hope children and adults will begin to imagine going to the mikveh themselves.
Haviva Ner-David is a writer and rabbi. In 2006 she became the first woman to publicly receive Orthodox rabbinic ordination, only to leave Orthodoxy and call herself a post-denominational rabbi. Ten years later, she received interfaith ordination from the One Spirit Interfaith-Interspiritual Seminary and now goes by post-denominational inter-spiritual rabbi.
She writes both fiction and non-fiction and is the author of three spiritual journey memoirs, a novel, short stories, essays, a blog on Times of Israel, scholarly articles and a guidebook for engaged couples. Her short story, “Blame,” won the 2016 Lilith Magazine short fiction contest.
Link to short story.
Photo credit: Carmel Avivi
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