Shalom Magazine

By Susie Davidson
Exclusive for Shalom Magazine

A new Rabbi Rocketpower book about Tu Bishvat, A Tooty Fruity Tale For Tu Bishvat - A Juicy Mystery, is the latest in Rabbi Abramson’s children’s book series featuring a superhero Rabbi and her son. In the books, the Rabbi mother flies, saying "Oy, vay! Up, up and away!", and saves the day with her shofar and yad. In each adventure, her son Aaron discovers the problems for his mom to solve. The new book includes a page of activities to help the environment (15 Tu-Rific Ways To Help The Planet). It is illustrated by Laura Standley, a synagogue congregant and senior at Woburn High School.

Rabbi Abramson, a native of Newton, is the longest serving female rabbi in Massachusetts and one of the first 50 women to be ordained as rabbis in the U.S. She was president of Hillel during college at Brandeis and went on to receive degrees from Hebrew Union College. After joining Temple Shalom Emeth, she helped resettle Russian families at her synagogue and married Vladimir Dvorkin, a member of one of the families, in 1991. She began writing stories in 2001 with their son, Aaron. Her husband died prematurely of a heart attack in 2005, and mother and son continued with the series. Aaron is currently 14 and a student at Gann Academy in Waltham, Mass.

Abramson began her book series following the 9/11 tragedies, when her son Aaron was in the first grade. Abramson fashioned the initial Rabbi Rocketpower stories so that he could focus his attention on compassionate and positive role models, and so that he could see that his family could rise above difficult situations. He loved to read funny books, but she could find nothing in Jewish children’s literature that he enjoyed in the same way. Abramson also felt that a superhero female rabbi could be admired by children.

She and Aaron devised Jewish stories that featured members of their family with super powers. They would save each Jewish holiday from those who threatened to disrupt it.

"Believe it or not, I wrote the entire series of six books the year my son was in first grade, to read to his class as each holiday came up," said Abramson, who explained that there is a story for every holiday, beginning with Chanukah and ending with Shavuot. "My next project will be to turn the Purim story into a book," she said.

In the new book, Rabbi B.A. Mensch and her son Aaron are preparing for their Temple’s Tu Bishvat seder in their kitchen. On the table, charging, is the father’s latest invention, the 3D Turbo Time Warp 5772, a supercomputer that can go back to any time in history. If the screen is tapped three times, events in 3D pop up - but Aaron is warned to never tap the screen four times, lest something terrible happen. The family’s talking alien cat Purr naps upon it while Aaron and Rabbi Mensch are upstairs, changing. And lo and behold, something (Tooty Fruity) pops out of the screen, running around the room creative havoc, turning down the heat and turning off the lights and the faucet. As Purr chases it, it hides inside a large bowl of raisins the Mensches are bringing to the temple.

During the ride there, Rabbi Mensch eats Tooty Fruity by mistake, thinking it is a large raisin. It grabs onto her "tonsils" and yells about saving the environment. Aaron thinks it is his mother speaking. When it goes to her sinuses while they are at the Temple, she feels a lump on her forehead. The family realizes there is an alien presence around. The Rabbi zooms home as Rabbi Rocketpower to get Purr. She makes Aaron and Purr tiny in size so that they are able to fly up her nose and chase the alien around inside her. She is, at the same time, on her way to conduct the Tu Bishvat seder.

Later in the book, it is revealed that Tooty Fruity is the piece of fruit that Adam and Eve ate from the Garden of Eden. The father, while trying to get it back into his machine, ends up sending the entire congregation there by mistake. But ultimately, Rabbi Rocketpower saves the day!

The series brings together Abramson’s heartfelt interests. "It was always my dream to be a writer," she said, recalling many hours spent writing stories as a child. "And one of my passions in the rabbinate is working with children," she added. "Once I had a child of my own, it became clear that I could have an even more special relationship with children by writing stories which would make them laugh and teach them about Judaism at the same time."

For information, please visit http://www.rabbirocketpower.com