Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Letters to Bubbie and Zadie
A letter written by "Grace", a resident at Bubbie & Zadie's House in San Rafael, California, as part of the letter-writing program in which Jewish children write letters to Bubbie and Zadie for Hannukah each year. Grace, who is 92, wrote to Paul Cohen, who is 8, of Chicago, after he wrote to Bubbie and Zadie by snail mail:
Dear Paul,
Sincerely,
Grace
==========================
Another letter, from an adult in her mid-40s....
Dear Bubbie and Zadie,
========================================
CANADIAN JEWISH NEWS, a weekly newspaper, December 15, 2006 issue
Pearl Saban, a Canadian writer in Toronto wrote this article for the Canadian Jewish News print edition.
Bubbie and Zadie Bring a Warm Feeling to Hannukah in North America
by Pearl Saban
Daniel Halevi Bloom believes that, and so does Zadie in Bloom’s recently published children’s book, Bubbie and Zadie Come to My House: A Story for Hanukkah.
The story tells of Bubbie and Zadie – Yiddish for Grandmother and Grandfather – a diminutive couple who, bundled up against the December cold, magically and mysteriously fly through the sky on the first night of Hanukkah. They visit children everywhere, bringing with them the spirit of the holiday through songs and stories. With laughter and warmth, they enjoy the children they visit, sharing the explanation of Hanukkah and partaking in the ages-old tradition of playing dreidel.
Like the weekly visit from the Sabbath Queen, and the annual Passover visit from the prophet Elijah, Bubbie and Zadie are happily welcomed into each Jewish home.
And it is only children who can see them. “You can see them if you use the eye inside your mind -- your imagination,” the little boy narrator tells us.
Before Bubbie and Zadie take their leave, the children in the story are invited to write letters and stay in touch with them.
Bubbie and Zadie Come to My House is the first children’s book to be published by Square One Publishers in New York. It is a newly revised and illustrated edition of the story, first published in 1985 by Donald I. Fine, Inc. Although the book’s been out of print for over ten years, and the accompanying audiotape hard to find, its publicity has continued to keep the story’s message very popular, and author Dan Bloom very busy. From his home in Taiwan, where he works as a journalist, Dan has been personally responding to the thousands of letters he’s received from all over the world – letters addressed to “Bubbie and Zadie.”
He started the letter-writing campaign in 1981; the book followed. Dan has received letters and e-mails from both children and adults, letters that talk about the excitement of the holiday, memories of family traditions, stories of the letter writer’s own grandparents. Adults have told Dan how meaningful the book is for them, how they’ve pulled it out each year to read aloud with family members. And Dan has answered each and every one of these letters.
It is the joy he gets from reading the letters, as well as “memories of my own wonderful Hanukkahs as a kid, and my sweet and dear grandparents” that has fed his enthusiasm all these years. And his determination to get the book republished came from the realization that he was getting older and that “if I didn’t do something soon, I would die one day and the book would disappear.”
Enter Rudy Shur, publisher and president of Square One Publishers. Last December, he recalls from his New York office, he read a New York Times article about this very special children’s book that had been long out of print, yet continued to generate hundreds and hundreds of letters from around the world written to “Bubbie and Zadie.”
The article, as well as the gentle persistence of Dan Bloom, drew Rudy’s attention to the book and the possibility of its reissue. Rudy explains, “For me, it was also the fact that I had never known my own grandparents, who had been killed in a concentration camp in Poland during World War II…. Around the time that I first spoke with Dan Bloom…I found myself a zadie for the third time… I felt it was time for me to open myself up to this story – as a publisher and as a person.”
Dan Bloom and Rudy Shur had found each other from across the miles. Then Rudy Shur found the very talented Israel-based artist Alex Meilichson, whose painting style he felt was perfect for the story. “There was no question that I had found the right artist for our version of the book. The question was: Could Alex produce twenty-eight paintings in eight weeks? The answer was: Absolutely.”
Meilichson, whose artistic style is influenced by, and reminiscent of, Marc Chagall and Manne Katz, uses brilliant, bright colours throughout this book. Bubbie and Zadie not only fly through the sky, they fly off the pages.
Bloom, who never met nor corresponded with the artist throughout the publishing process, is delighted with the artistry, layout and design of the new book.
In spite of the geographical distance between the author in Taiwan, the artist in Israel and the publisher in New York, “everything seemed to come together fairly well,” recalls Shur. “Communication began with e-mails from the author in Taiwan and continued that way throughout the process.” The result: an international labour of love. He explains, “I produced this book together with Dan and Alex out of love, above anything else…for grandparents to read to their grandchildren or for parents to read to their children, who may never have had their own special opportunity to know their own grandparents.”
Designed as a gift to be given by grandparents to grandchildren the first night of Hanukkah, this edition of the book invites both children and adult readers to write letters to the “Bubbie and Zadie” characters from the story. Each letter will be answered by return mail, free of charge, by the author, and also by some real-life bubbies and zadies from Bubbie and Zadies L’Chaim House, a senior citizen’s home nestled in the hills of San Rafael, California. Manny Kopstein, director of the home, is encouraged by the idea of authentic bubbies and zadies signing the letters as “Bubbie and Zadie.”
In many ways, the letter-writing aspect is what excited Bloom the most about having the book made available again. “The magic and loving feelings of the Hanukkah holidays, as passed down to me and those of my generation by our own bubbies and zadies when we were children, is one of the greatest gifts that can ever be given. And it’s wonderful that these elderly people now want to share the tradition of the holidays with the children by helping to write letters to them.”
Bloom hopes to be able to respond to “Bubbie and Zadie” letters for many years to come. He’d also like to see the book translated into Hebrew for the Israeli market. After that, the sky’s the limit. “And a movie for Hollywood... A live-action movie or a cartoon. It might take ten years, but that’s my dream.”
This writer has no doubt that with his exuberance, and with the magical help of “Bubbie and Zadie,” Daniel Halevi Bloom might just make that dream come true!
Children and adults can send their letters to:
Bubbie and Zadie’s Mailbox
c/o Square One Publishers
115 Herricks Road
Garden City Park, NY, 11040
U.S.A.
Bubbie and Zadie also welcome e-mail letters at bubbie.zadie@gmail.com
=============
[NEWS ARTICLE, taken from Virginia-Pilot in Virginia, written by Krys Stefansky]
Hanukkah story touches interfaith family in Virginia
Internet News Agency
December 13, 2006
Norfolk, Virginia
Twenty years ago, when Susan Anderson was given a cassette tape of a children's Hanukkah story titled "Bubbie and Zadie Come to My House", her first child Ryan was about a year old and the family, including Anderson's husband, Jim, began listening to the tape every Hanukkah at their home in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
In the story written by children's author Daniel Halevi Bloom, Bubbie and Zadie -- Yiddish words for "grandma and grandpa" -- embody the spirit of all grandparents. Every December, on the first night of Hannukah, they leave their little tailor shop and fly
magically through the sky to visit Jewish children. At each house, Bubbie and Zadie sit and chat and share a snack, advise children to have good hearts and tell them stories about the Jewish faith.
Anderson recently told the Virginian-Pilot newspaper that when she was only six weeks old, she was adopted by parents of mixed religion. Her adoptive father was Jewish, her mother Methodist. Anderson was brought up in the Jewish faith but never practiced Jewish traditions. Then, before her own children were born, she had a blood test and discovered that she had a genetic fluke carried only by Jewish people.
So then she knew she truly was Jewish-born. That discovery made her determined to embrace the traditions of the Jewish faith. Her husband, a Presbyterian, understood and agreed.
That's why, over the course of 18 years, the small cassette tape grew to be very important in the Anderson household. Every December, they would listen to it in the kitchen, in the car, snuggled together on the sofa.
"I wanted to create my own little magic with Hanukkah," Anderson said. "It's all about lighting the candles. With kids, it's all about the presents. If they think these little people come, it just makes it all the more fun."
So, every night, after the family lit their Hanukkah candles, Bubbie and Zadie would leave presents under Ryan, Jordan and Jillian's beds.
However, a few years ago, Anderson lost the tape. Her youngest child, Jillian, couldn't hear the recorded story anymore. Still, Jillian always waited for Bubbie and Zadie to visit.
Then in 2005, when her children had grown to be 21, 17 and 8 years old, Anderson saw an article in a newspaper and read that Bubbie and Zadie were the main characters in a children's book written by Bloom and originally published in 1985.
Anderson searched all over forthe book, and finally, like so many children who have written to Bubbie and Zadie over the years at the author's invitation, Anderson wrote directly to the elderly couple -- their address was in the newspaper article -- on New Year's Day 2006.
Bloom, an American how living on the other side of the world in Asia, wrote right back, right on Anderson's letter.
"What a beautiful, moving letter!" Bloom scribbled in the margins. "Your letter touches me deeply. I am in tears -- of joy, of course."
He knew, of course, that his book had become a fixture in many Jewish homes. And he knew why.
When Bloom was a child
growing up in Massachusetts in the 1950s, he had always had the feeling that Hanukkah was overshadowed by Christmas -- the trees, the music, the TV specials, the Santas.
He felt there should be more about the Festival of Lights.
"But of course, I was only 10, so I had no idea what to do," Bloom recently told a reporter. Then in 1981, in his 30s, he invented an imaginary pair of grandparents and sent out a release to The Associated Press inviting children to write Hanukkah letters to the couple, for free. And they would get a letter in return, for free.
The letter idea took off, The New York Times wrote about Bloom, he wrote the book about Bubbie and Zadie and then came the audio tape -- the same tape that Anderson first listened to 18 years ago.
Bloom understood Anderson's passion for the story. After all, children and adults had written more than 10,000 letters to him, and to Bubbie and Zadie, over the years.
He suggested Anderson try to find a copy of the book at Amazon.com. He told her she could download the story for free from a Web site. He even offered to send her a copy via e-mail.
That's because, despite the letters, and despite the popularity the story had attained in the Jewish community for 25 years, the book had gone out of print by 2000.
It was not the first time somebody had said his book should still be on the market. The Massachusetts native is the author of seven other children's books and has worked in several countries as a cartoonist, a newspaper editor, a public relations consultant and freelance journalist.
Anderson's letter, he told the Virginian-Pilot, gave him a "kick in the 'tuches'", and that he tried hard to find a new publisher to bring Bubbie and Zadie back into print again.
Bloom had taken the story to 30 new publishers over the previous five years, and they all said no thank you.
One day, by email, Bloom got in touch with Rudy Shur, head of Square One Publishers in New York.
Shur asked for the book.
"I thought it was cute and clever," Shur said, "and I thought the art needed to be updated. It needed to be more 2006."
Shur's wife had an idea. An art exhibit was opening in just a few days. "She said, 'Go there,' " Shur remembered, "and I said, 'Yes, honey, let's go. Just schlepp me along.'
"I went there and passed a small booth with some artwork, and it was done in the style of (Marc) Chagall and had a Jewish name on it. And I said this is really beautiful."
The artist, Alex Meilichson, was visiting from his home in Israel, where he had once studied sociology and political science at Tel Aviv University. He didn't do illustrations, he told Shur. He did paintings.
"So I said, let me tell you about me," Shur said. "I have a project. The author is in Taiwan, and I think that if we put your style of art in the book, it would be really good. We need 28 paintings, and we need them in eight weeks and we need them done relatively cheap."
Three and a half weeks later, the paintings were done.
This past September 2006, Bloom's book, in a brand-new edition with new illustrations, was back on the market, ready for grandparents to give to their grandchildren on the first night of Hanukkah.
And Bloom, well, Bloom says he is ecstatic. "Bubbie and Zadie have been rescued and given a second life. That's all I was looking for."
And imagine Anderson's surprise when she received her copy last month, read it all the way through, then found her name on the last page under the author's acknowledgements: "Susan Anderson in Virginia."
===============
JEWISH WEEK OF NEW YORK
The Bubbie/Zadie Letters
by Stewart Ain
http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=13394
If you think keeping track of gifts for all your grandchildren at Chanukah time is tough, be grateful you’re not Daniel Halevi Bloom. He has 10,000 “grandkids” to write to.
It all started in 1981 when Bloom wrote a story about a Jewish grandfather and grandmother who were able to magically fly to children’s homes on the first night of Chanukah to play the dreidel game and sing Chanukah songs. The story, which was published in 1985 as “Bubbie and Zadie Come to My House,” invites readers — children and adults — to write to Bubbie and Zadie.
Bloom, a freelance writer from Boston, said he has answered every letter even though it takes him two hours a day. He said he is a night owl and prefers answering the letters between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. He signs his letters, “Bubbie and Zadie.”
After being out of print for 15 years, the book was reissued with some slight text changes this year by Square One Publishers of Garden City Park, L.I. It is illustrated with 28 color paintings by Israeli painter Alex Meilichson, and it again invites readers’ letters either in care of the publisher or to bubbie.zadie@gmail.com.
Among the letters he received last year was one from Steve, a convert to Judaism who wrote that one of his fondest memories as a child was writing to Santa Claus and that writing to Bubbie and Zadie was “the Jewish way” of doing it.
Rudy Shur, founder and publisher of Square One Publishers, said this is a book for grandparents to read to their grandchildren.
Kids and adults may write letters to bubbie and zadie all year round at:
Dear Paul,
Thank you for writing a letter to Bubbie and Zadie for Hannukah. Happy
Hannukah to you and your family. I think the best part of Hannukah is
the gathering of family together. I am a real Bubbie. My name is Grace
and I live at Bubbie and Zadie's House in San Rafael, California.
I am 92 years old and I am well. I'm looking forward to reading your
next letter.
Sincerely,
Grace
==========================
Another letter, from an adult in her mid-40s....
Dear Bubbie and Zadie,
I wrote all about you in my article [for a Jewish newspaper], but I neglected to tell you of my own fond family memories of Chanukah in my family's home. I will do that now.
Being that i'm the only piano player amidst the family, every year, during the singing of "Maoz Tsur," I was called upon to sit at the piano and accompany the singing voices.
Although we had several menorahs, my favorite one is my parents' that was in my mother's home while growing up. She also has a card with the words to "Maoz Tsur" printed on it, and it, too, comes from her home. It traveled across the ocean, along with the menorah, to a new country, a new language, a new life...but with old and familiar traditions in tow.
After lighting the menorah, singing the blessings and songs, we'd always go and eat latkes that my father would prepare on the electric fryer, when i was a kid. my brothers and i would eat, then play a bit of dreidel and eat the chocolate coins we got. we'd usually get a silver dollar too, on the first night of Chanukah. gifts and large gatherings were not our style; family and a warm, intimate setting superceded all that.
Every year, we go to my parents at least on one of the nights to light together and enjoy each other's company. We take pictures of my parents with my children...and we hope to be able to do that for many years to come! and yes, i'm still asked to sit down and play "Maoz Tsur" on the piano.
========================================
CANADIAN JEWISH NEWS, a weekly newspaper, December 15, 2006 issue
Pearl Saban, a Canadian writer in Toronto wrote this article for the Canadian Jewish News print edition.
Bubbie and Zadie Bring a Warm Feeling to Hannukah in North America
by Pearl Saban
“A good heart is like a pretty candle burning in the menorah. It can light up the world.”
Daniel Halevi Bloom believes that, and so does Zadie in Bloom’s recently published children’s book, Bubbie and Zadie Come to My House: A Story for Hanukkah.
The story tells of Bubbie and Zadie – Yiddish for Grandmother and Grandfather – a diminutive couple who, bundled up against the December cold, magically and mysteriously fly through the sky on the first night of Hanukkah. They visit children everywhere, bringing with them the spirit of the holiday through songs and stories. With laughter and warmth, they enjoy the children they visit, sharing the explanation of Hanukkah and partaking in the ages-old tradition of playing dreidel.
Like the weekly visit from the Sabbath Queen, and the annual Passover visit from the prophet Elijah, Bubbie and Zadie are happily welcomed into each Jewish home.
And it is only children who can see them. “You can see them if you use the eye inside your mind -- your imagination,” the little boy narrator tells us.
Before Bubbie and Zadie take their leave, the children in the story are invited to write letters and stay in touch with them.
Bubbie and Zadie Come to My House is the first children’s book to be published by Square One Publishers in New York. It is a newly revised and illustrated edition of the story, first published in 1985 by Donald I. Fine, Inc. Although the book’s been out of print for over ten years, and the accompanying audiotape hard to find, its publicity has continued to keep the story’s message very popular, and author Dan Bloom very busy. From his home in Taiwan, where he works as a journalist, Dan has been personally responding to the thousands of letters he’s received from all over the world – letters addressed to “Bubbie and Zadie.”
He started the letter-writing campaign in 1981; the book followed. Dan has received letters and e-mails from both children and adults, letters that talk about the excitement of the holiday, memories of family traditions, stories of the letter writer’s own grandparents. Adults have told Dan how meaningful the book is for them, how they’ve pulled it out each year to read aloud with family members. And Dan has answered each and every one of these letters.
It is the joy he gets from reading the letters, as well as “memories of my own wonderful Hanukkahs as a kid, and my sweet and dear grandparents” that has fed his enthusiasm all these years. And his determination to get the book republished came from the realization that he was getting older and that “if I didn’t do something soon, I would die one day and the book would disappear.”
Enter Rudy Shur, publisher and president of Square One Publishers. Last December, he recalls from his New York office, he read a New York Times article about this very special children’s book that had been long out of print, yet continued to generate hundreds and hundreds of letters from around the world written to “Bubbie and Zadie.”
The article, as well as the gentle persistence of Dan Bloom, drew Rudy’s attention to the book and the possibility of its reissue. Rudy explains, “For me, it was also the fact that I had never known my own grandparents, who had been killed in a concentration camp in Poland during World War II…. Around the time that I first spoke with Dan Bloom…I found myself a zadie for the third time… I felt it was time for me to open myself up to this story – as a publisher and as a person.”
Dan Bloom and Rudy Shur had found each other from across the miles. Then Rudy Shur found the very talented Israel-based artist Alex Meilichson, whose painting style he felt was perfect for the story. “There was no question that I had found the right artist for our version of the book. The question was: Could Alex produce twenty-eight paintings in eight weeks? The answer was: Absolutely.”
Meilichson, whose artistic style is influenced by, and reminiscent of, Marc Chagall and Manne Katz, uses brilliant, bright colours throughout this book. Bubbie and Zadie not only fly through the sky, they fly off the pages.
Bloom, who never met nor corresponded with the artist throughout the publishing process, is delighted with the artistry, layout and design of the new book.
In spite of the geographical distance between the author in Taiwan, the artist in Israel and the publisher in New York, “everything seemed to come together fairly well,” recalls Shur. “Communication began with e-mails from the author in Taiwan and continued that way throughout the process.” The result: an international labour of love. He explains, “I produced this book together with Dan and Alex out of love, above anything else…for grandparents to read to their grandchildren or for parents to read to their children, who may never have had their own special opportunity to know their own grandparents.”
Designed as a gift to be given by grandparents to grandchildren the first night of Hanukkah, this edition of the book invites both children and adult readers to write letters to the “Bubbie and Zadie” characters from the story. Each letter will be answered by return mail, free of charge, by the author, and also by some real-life bubbies and zadies from Bubbie and Zadies L’Chaim House, a senior citizen’s home nestled in the hills of San Rafael, California. Manny Kopstein, director of the home, is encouraged by the idea of authentic bubbies and zadies signing the letters as “Bubbie and Zadie.”
In many ways, the letter-writing aspect is what excited Bloom the most about having the book made available again. “The magic and loving feelings of the Hanukkah holidays, as passed down to me and those of my generation by our own bubbies and zadies when we were children, is one of the greatest gifts that can ever be given. And it’s wonderful that these elderly people now want to share the tradition of the holidays with the children by helping to write letters to them.”
Bloom hopes to be able to respond to “Bubbie and Zadie” letters for many years to come. He’d also like to see the book translated into Hebrew for the Israeli market. After that, the sky’s the limit. “And a movie for Hollywood... A live-action movie or a cartoon. It might take ten years, but that’s my dream.”
This writer has no doubt that with his exuberance, and with the magical help of “Bubbie and Zadie,” Daniel Halevi Bloom might just make that dream come true!
Children and adults can send their letters to:
Bubbie and Zadie’s Mailbox
c/o Square One Publishers
115 Herricks Road
Garden City Park, NY, 11040
U.S.A.
Bubbie and Zadie also welcome e-mail letters at bubbie.zadie@gmail.com
=============
[NEWS ARTICLE, taken from Virginia-Pilot in Virginia, written by Krys Stefansky]
Hanukkah story touches interfaith family in Virginia
Internet News Agency
December 13, 2006
Norfolk, Virginia
Twenty years ago, when Susan Anderson was given a cassette tape of a children's Hanukkah story titled "Bubbie and Zadie Come to My House", her first child Ryan was about a year old and the family, including Anderson's husband, Jim, began listening to the tape every Hanukkah at their home in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
In the story written by children's author Daniel Halevi Bloom, Bubbie and Zadie -- Yiddish words for "grandma and grandpa" -- embody the spirit of all grandparents. Every December, on the first night of Hannukah, they leave their little tailor shop and fly
magically through the sky to visit Jewish children. At each house, Bubbie and Zadie sit and chat and share a snack, advise children to have good hearts and tell them stories about the Jewish faith.
Anderson recently told the Virginian-Pilot newspaper that when she was only six weeks old, she was adopted by parents of mixed religion. Her adoptive father was Jewish, her mother Methodist. Anderson was brought up in the Jewish faith but never practiced Jewish traditions. Then, before her own children were born, she had a blood test and discovered that she had a genetic fluke carried only by Jewish people.
So then she knew she truly was Jewish-born. That discovery made her determined to embrace the traditions of the Jewish faith. Her husband, a Presbyterian, understood and agreed.
That's why, over the course of 18 years, the small cassette tape grew to be very important in the Anderson household. Every December, they would listen to it in the kitchen, in the car, snuggled together on the sofa.
"I wanted to create my own little magic with Hanukkah," Anderson said. "It's all about lighting the candles. With kids, it's all about the presents. If they think these little people come, it just makes it all the more fun."
So, every night, after the family lit their Hanukkah candles, Bubbie and Zadie would leave presents under Ryan, Jordan and Jillian's beds.
However, a few years ago, Anderson lost the tape. Her youngest child, Jillian, couldn't hear the recorded story anymore. Still, Jillian always waited for Bubbie and Zadie to visit.
Then in 2005, when her children had grown to be 21, 17 and 8 years old, Anderson saw an article in a newspaper and read that Bubbie and Zadie were the main characters in a children's book written by Bloom and originally published in 1985.
Anderson searched all over forthe book, and finally, like so many children who have written to Bubbie and Zadie over the years at the author's invitation, Anderson wrote directly to the elderly couple -- their address was in the newspaper article -- on New Year's Day 2006.
"We still hide the presents under the bed each night, so she does know about them," Anderson wrote, referring to her daughter, Jillian, and then her two boys. "It has been a wonderful, magical, fun experience over the years to hear their little footsteps run upstairs and come down with smiles and excitement that again Bubbie and Zadie were here."
Bloom, an American how living on the other side of the world in Asia, wrote right back, right on Anderson's letter.
"What a beautiful, moving letter!" Bloom scribbled in the margins. "Your letter touches me deeply. I am in tears -- of joy, of course."
He knew, of course, that his book had become a fixture in many Jewish homes. And he knew why.
When Bloom was a child
growing up in Massachusetts in the 1950s, he had always had the feeling that Hanukkah was overshadowed by Christmas -- the trees, the music, the TV specials, the Santas.
He felt there should be more about the Festival of Lights.
"But of course, I was only 10, so I had no idea what to do," Bloom recently told a reporter. Then in 1981, in his 30s, he invented an imaginary pair of grandparents and sent out a release to The Associated Press inviting children to write Hanukkah letters to the couple, for free. And they would get a letter in return, for free.
The letter idea took off, The New York Times wrote about Bloom, he wrote the book about Bubbie and Zadie and then came the audio tape -- the same tape that Anderson first listened to 18 years ago.
Bloom understood Anderson's passion for the story. After all, children and adults had written more than 10,000 letters to him, and to Bubbie and Zadie, over the years.
He suggested Anderson try to find a copy of the book at Amazon.com. He told her she could download the story for free from a Web site. He even offered to send her a copy via e-mail.
That's because, despite the letters, and despite the popularity the story had attained in the Jewish community for 25 years, the book had gone out of print by 2000.
It was not the first time somebody had said his book should still be on the market. The Massachusetts native is the author of seven other children's books and has worked in several countries as a cartoonist, a newspaper editor, a public relations consultant and freelance journalist.
Anderson's letter, he told the Virginian-Pilot, gave him a "kick in the 'tuches'", and that he tried hard to find a new publisher to bring Bubbie and Zadie back into print again.
Bloom had taken the story to 30 new publishers over the previous five years, and they all said no thank you.
One day, by email, Bloom got in touch with Rudy Shur, head of Square One Publishers in New York.
"I told Dan, 'Wow, we don't publish children's books,'" Shur recalled. But he remembered reading about a fellow who had written a children's book and was still getting letters from children around the world.
"Yup, that's me," Bloom told him.
Shur asked for the book.
"I thought it was cute and clever," Shur said, "and I thought the art needed to be updated. It needed to be more 2006."
Shur's wife had an idea. An art exhibit was opening in just a few days. "She said, 'Go there,' " Shur remembered, "and I said, 'Yes, honey, let's go. Just schlepp me along.'
"I went there and passed a small booth with some artwork, and it was done in the style of (Marc) Chagall and had a Jewish name on it. And I said this is really beautiful."
The artist, Alex Meilichson, was visiting from his home in Israel, where he had once studied sociology and political science at Tel Aviv University. He didn't do illustrations, he told Shur. He did paintings.
"So I said, let me tell you about me," Shur said. "I have a project. The author is in Taiwan, and I think that if we put your style of art in the book, it would be really good. We need 28 paintings, and we need them in eight weeks and we need them done relatively cheap."
Three and a half weeks later, the paintings were done.
This past September 2006, Bloom's book, in a brand-new edition with new illustrations, was back on the market, ready for grandparents to give to their grandchildren on the first night of Hanukkah.
And Bloom, well, Bloom says he is ecstatic. "Bubbie and Zadie have been rescued and given a second life. That's all I was looking for."
And imagine Anderson's surprise when she received her copy last month, read it all the way through, then found her name on the last page under the author's acknowledgements: "Susan Anderson in Virginia."
It was as if Bubbie and Zadie themselves had flown through the air and left her an early Hanukkah gift.
===============
JEWISH WEEK OF NEW YORK
The Bubbie/Zadie Letters
by Stewart Ain
http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=13394
If you think keeping track of gifts for all your grandchildren at Chanukah time is tough, be grateful you’re not Daniel Halevi Bloom. He has 10,000 “grandkids” to write to.
It all started in 1981 when Bloom wrote a story about a Jewish grandfather and grandmother who were able to magically fly to children’s homes on the first night of Chanukah to play the dreidel game and sing Chanukah songs. The story, which was published in 1985 as “Bubbie and Zadie Come to My House,” invites readers — children and adults — to write to Bubbie and Zadie.
Bloom, a freelance writer from Boston, said he has answered every letter even though it takes him two hours a day. He said he is a night owl and prefers answering the letters between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. He signs his letters, “Bubbie and Zadie.”
After being out of print for 15 years, the book was reissued with some slight text changes this year by Square One Publishers of Garden City Park, L.I. It is illustrated with 28 color paintings by Israeli painter Alex Meilichson, and it again invites readers’ letters either in care of the publisher or to bubbie.zadie@gmail.com.
“The letters are beginning to come in, and [I’m] expecting hundreds more in the first two weeks of December,” Bloom wrote in an e-mail.
Among the letters he received last year was one from Steve, a convert to Judaism who wrote that one of his fondest memories as a child was writing to Santa Claus and that writing to Bubbie and Zadie was “the Jewish way” of doing it.
“When Bubbie and Zadie write to children, Chanukah will be real,” Steve wrote. “And that is the reason for the season.”
Rudy Shur, founder and publisher of Square One Publishers, said this is a book for grandparents to read to their grandchildren.
“There is something in people that connects them with the point of the book,” he said. “It’s a sweet and simple story about grandparents who may no longer be around.”
Kids and adults may write letters to bubbie and zadie all year round at:
115 Herricks Road
Garden Park City, NY 11040
