Elkhonen Saks at the World Book Fair in Jerusalem

This is a photo of me at the World Book Fair in Jerusalem in 1997. In 1990 I organized a small publishing house, Aviv, in Tallinn whose basic purpose was the promotion of books by prominent Jewish authors in Estonian. My sister Ite introduced me to Estonian intellectuals who were interested in Jewish culture. The well-known novel The Slave by Nobel Prize winner Isaac Singer was the first book published by Aviv. It was printed with a circulation of 10,000 copies, and most of them were sold at once. Then we published a collection of selected stories by another famous writer, Shmuel Agnon. We also published a very beautiful book for children and an anthology of Jewish poetry entitled Dream in Jerusalem. The last book we published was a book by Sholem Aleichem. After that the publishing house Aviv ceased to exist, and I more or less plunged into journalism. In 1997 I participated in the World Book Fair in Jerusalem as a member of the delegation of Estonian journalists, writers and publishers. I represented the Aviv publishing house and exhibited the books by Jewish authors we had published in Estonian. On behalf of the publishers I presented one copy of each book to the national library of the Hebrew University. The books arouse interest with those Estonian Jews who now reside in Israel. I was in Israel for three weeks, traveling a lot and admiring its beauty and achievements. My son Touri came with me. I'd like to visit Israel once again and travel around the country. God willing, my dream will come true.