Summary: I wrote Alon Shomer HaSimcha (Alon, Guardian of Joy) from a place close to my heart - to help protect children from social exclusion in kindergartens and schools. It comes from my own childhood, when I was the one left out, the one who didn't belong. Every presentation starts the same way I'd want it to for any child listening: with the story itself. I read Alon Shomer HaSimcha aloud, and then we talk together - about the book, about Alon, about what it feels like to be him. After that, I open up and share my own story, as the child who was once excluded. The kids ask questions, and I answer honestly. We end with a song - one I wrote and composed myself, "Boundless" (Lelo Gvulot). It carries the message I most want to leave behind: that the children in that room have the power to build a better, kinder world. As the lyrics go: "A new world, with a heart full of feeling and warmth."
My Story of Exclusion When I started middle school, I was so happy about the chance to make new friends. But I wasn't one of the popular kids - and as time went on, I found myself pushed further and further to the edges, a target for mockery and teasing. I never joined the boys' soccer games. I was deeply alone. There was no real reason for it. I didn't look different. I didn't dress differently from the other kids. I didn't act differently either. But the kids in my class didn't need a good reason to decide I was different from them - even though being different is a beautiful thing, never a reason to shut someone out. When I came home, I would close myself in my room. I never told my worried parents why I preferred being alone there - so they assumed it was simply what I liked to do. The kids in my class had no idea I sang, that I wrote songs. Even back in sixth grade, at my old school, I had put on a whole show - singing, dancing, comedy. I had so much to give. And for the entire time I was in middle school, all of it stayed locked away with me, in that room.