RSS
Mary Ann Hoberman, a kids’ writer whose poems drew on the warmth of her loud Jewish homes
(JTA) — Poet and children’s book author Mary Ann Hoberman, whose own childhood in a “very loud, raucous, opinionated” Jewish household inspired the family themes that infused her books, died on July 7 at her home in Greenwich, Conn. She was 92.
The author of dozens of children’s books, including “The Llama Who Had No Pajama,” “The Seven Silly Eaters” and “You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You,” Hoberman was named “Children’s Poet Laureate” by the Poetry Foundation, a title she held from 2008-2011.
The theme of family was prominent in two of her most celebrated books, “A House Is a House for Me” (1978), which won a National Book Award, and “All Kinds of Families!” (2009), which whimsically celebrated what a sociologist might call non-traditional families.
“Eggs in a carton can seem like a family/ So can a loaf with its slices of bread/ Celery stalks or a big bunch of carrots/ They sleep in the fridge with a drawer for a bed,” she wrote.
Born Mary Ann Freedman in 1930, Hoberman said that her family moved frequently before her parents “fetched up” in New Haven, Connecticut. There, she told an interviewer, “my mother’s mother and her family lived and some of my father’s family, as well. And some of my memories have to do with this large extended family. No one had very much money. They were immigrants. There was a great warmth, a lot of Yiddish speaking — which they kept from me — because it was the secret language that grownups could communicate with.”
Those memories inspired the “very strong love” of family that she incorporated in many of her books.
“It all has to do with this very loud, raucous, opinionated family, chattering around in various languages and just drinking tea in glasses with cherries in them. That was what they did around the kitchen table,” she said. “And I, sitting there wanting to understand what they were talking about and not always succeeding, but just feeling very good to be a part of it. Yes, I loved that very much.”
She drew most explicitly on her Jewish, Depression-era childhood in “Strawberry Hill” (2009), a novel about Allie, a 10-year-old girl whose family moves to a new town. When a friend of a friend calls Allie a “dirty Jew,” it leads to lessons in difference and tolerance.
Hoberman grew up mostly in Connecticut, where her father was a salesman who, after some years of struggle, would found a Jewish country club, according to the Washington Post.
She received an undergraduate degree in history from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and, 35 years later, a master’s degree in English and literature from Yale University. In 1951, she married Norman Hoberman, an architect, who illustrated her first book, “All My Shoes Come in Twos” (1957), based on poems she had written for her children.
Her husband died in 2015; one of their sons, Perry, would later illustrate some of his mother’s books. Hoberman is survived by Perry and three other children, Diane Louie, Chuck Hoberman and Meg Hoberman; a brother, and six grandchildren.
In addition to her book-writing, Hoberman taught writing and literature from the elementary through the college level. She co-founded and performed with “The Pocket People,” a children’s theater group, and “Women’s Voices,” a group giving dramatized poetry readings.
—
The post Mary Ann Hoberman, a kids’ writer whose poems drew on the warmth of her loud Jewish homes appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency
The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
RSS
Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation
Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family
i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.
Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.
“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.
“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.
“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”
RSS
Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack
A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24
i24 News – The stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.
Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.
The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.
“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”
“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.