Call Me Gebyanesh

After Gebyanesh and her family move from Ethiopia to Israel, she has difficulty being accepted when her teacher forces her to use the name Rakhel and her classmates make fun of her Ethiopian-style lunches.

"Highly recommended." —Jewish Book Council

"A good fit for collections that support social-emotional learning..." —School Library Journal

Gebyanesh Addisu teams up with co-author Arlene Schenker to turn her experiences as a young immigrant struggling in a new and strange place into a universal story about the importance of name to identity and being true to yourself and your culture.

Will I ever belong here? Gebyanesh asked herself that very question on her first day in her new school in her new country. Her family had just moved to Jerusalem from Ethiopia, and already she was feeling unsettled by how different everything was. This was only made worse when her teacher could not pronounce her name—and wouldn''t really even try. "We will call you Rakhel," the teacher said. That isn''t my name, Gebyanesh thought. But she said nothing.

From then on, she was Rakhel at school and Gebyanesh at home. She didn''t want to tell her parents about her struggles, but when they saw her Israeli name on some of her schoolwork, she couldn''t hold her frustrations back anymore. She would need their help to learn more about her heritage, her name, and how to stand up for herself.

• | Author: Arlene Rosenfeld Schenker, Chiara Fedele, Gebyanesh Addisu
• | Publisher: Behrman House Inc.,U.S.
• | Publication Date: Apr 29, 2025
• | Number of Pages:
• | Language:
• | Binding: Hardback
• | ISBN-13: 9781681156606
• | ISBN-10: 1681156601