Tobie Weisman - To Life! A Celebration of Vermont Jewish Women

About this film

Tobie Weisman was born in Union, New Jersey in 1958. Her ancestors emigrated from Russia and settled in cities up and down the East Coast. Her mother, Shulamith Berlin, lived in Brooklyn until Tobie’s grandfather took a fancy to chicken farming and moved the family to Toms River, New Jersey. Tobie remembers snuggling with her grandmother and reveling in the stories and jokes that the older woman told her over the years. Her father Donald Weisman, was born in Baltimore in 1927. He was a cantor, and Tobie sang with him at their synagogue in Olney, Maryland. Tobie’s parents were employed as social workers by Jewish community organizations throughout their professional careers. When she was 13, Tobie traveled to Israel, where she was photographed with David Ben-Gurion, the young nation’s first prime minister. She never forgot his advice, “All you have to do is learn Hebrew and the rest will follow.” After-school Hebrew classes and summers at a Zionist children’s camp—where she learned Israeli folk songs and dances —served to burnish Tobie’s Hebrew skills. Tobie graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1980 with a degree in Hebrew and Semitic Studies. She had been active in Hillel…

Directors & creators

DAVAR: The Vermont Jewish Women's History Project

Subjects

Vermont, Jewish women, Israel, Hebrew, rabbi, Jewish Educational Resources of the Northeast

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