Superman was created by two Jews (writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster), and the latest buzz about the upcoming “Batman vs. Superman” movie concerns the selection of Israeli actress Gal Gadot to play Wonder Woman. But today’s Jewish children have a more religiously relevant caped crusader to look up to.
Rabbi Susan Abramson, one of the first 50 women to be ordained as a rabbi and currently the longest-serving female rabbi in Massachusetts, has created a line of children’s books featuring the heroine Rabbi Rocketpower. Sporting the motto “one good deed leads to another” — a phrase from Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) — and shouting “Oy vey! Up, up and away!” when she takes off, Rabbi Rocketpower promotes patience, perseverance and dedication to one’s cause and one’s fellow men and women.
Rabbi Rocketpower brings peace wherever she goes and educates, especially when it comes to the Jewish holidays.
“There are no bad guys in ‘Rabbi Rocketpower,’” Abramson said. “Just misguided aliens who innocently disrupt the Jewish holiday without understanding what it’s about.”
The children’s book series includes “Rabbi Rocketpower and the Half-Baked Matzah Mystery — A Particularly Peculiar Passover”; “Rabbi Rocketpower in the Mystery of the Missing Menorahs — A Hanukkah Humdinger”; and “Rabbi Rocketpower in a Tooty Fruity Tale for Tu Bishvat — A Juicy Mystery.” The next book, due out in the spring, will be “Torah with a Twist — A Challachic Guide,” and will provide a synopsis and analysis of each week’s Torah portion.
A portion of proceeds from book sales goes to supporting the fulfilling of mitzvot around the world.
Abramson — the pulpit rabbi at Reform Temple Shalom Emeth of Burlington, Mass., since 1984 — was inspired to create “Rabbi Rocketpower” when she surveyed the contemporary comic and kid literature world.
“It would always bother me that there is so much death and sadness in children’s literature in general,” Abramson said. “Nothing sad happens in my books.
“We all have the power to try to figure out why people act the way they do, to have compassion and patience, and try to teach them so they will be better informed in the future,” she added.
Having grown up in the Boston suburb of Newton, Abramson recalled coming to these life lessons with the help of her childhood rabbis, and she was inspired to become a rabbi herself. Other than Judaism and the rabbinate, her passion was writing.
When her son, Aaron, was in the first grade in 2001, Abramson began looking for age-appropriate Jewish stories to share. “I was looking for interesting and funny books to teach him about the holidays. But I couldn’t find any,” she said. Her solution was to create her own books.
“I wanted to write stories that kids would find humorous and slightly irreverent … [that would] be reflective of a modern Jewish family,” said Abramson, who based the “Rabbi Rocketpower” characters on her own family members (including the cat), and also relied on her synagogue community to help put out the series. Her publisher, art director and editor are all members of her congregation.
She wanted her books to be religiously enriching, amusing and engaging.
“It was most important that the stories revolve around the Jewish holidays, since those are a natural expression of the American Jewish identity,” she said. “I wanted them to be a teaching tool, so that kids and families could learn about the holiday by reading the story.”
By including educational glossaries in each book as well as recipes related to Jewish holidays being “saved,” Abramson hoped her series would appeal to parents and kids alike, bringing families together.
“It is a fun and engaging way to teach about the Jewish holidays,” she said, “and to find a way to connect both children and adults with Jewish tradition, a modern Jewish lifestyle, and [to] do my small part to perpetuate the Jewish people