After Oberman had sent the story off to a contest sponsored by Highlights for Children magazine, he discovered that Boyds Mills, which is owned by Highlights for Children, Inc., wanted to publish it.
Writing adult and children's works often becomes a parallel experience for Oberman, a native of Winnipeg, Canada. While working on the children's book, he was also writing the 1993 adult title, This Business With Elijah (Turnstone Press), which consists of interrelated stories set in Oberman's home community in it the North End of Winnipeg. Similar to the children's book, tradition is a key factor in that book. "The central characters are an old man and a young boy," Oberman says. "The old man tells stories of his people. And the boy is being transformed by those stories. The whole storytelling tradition is what he (the boy) acquires - as he himself becomes a storyteller."
The parallelism of writing for children and adults is also apparent with The Always Prayer Shawl itself, as it was "very natural" to adapt it for a play, Oberman explains. The show was commissioned by The Winnipeg Jewish Theater. Oberman has previously written scripts and directed plays and short films.
Oberman devotes most of his professional life to writing and teaching part-time at Joseph Wolinsky Collegiate in the North End of Winnipeg, the only Jewish high school between Toronto and Vancouver, he says. He also performs as a storyteller in elementary schools and has written songs for Fred Penner.
The son of Al Oberman, a former champion weightlifter, and Dorothy Oberman, a psychic counselor, the author comes from a fairly colourful family, well-known in Winnipeg, he says. "We had steam baths. They were all big guys except my grandfather, who maneuvered between all these hulks. Even my grandmother did weights." he recounts.
Incidentally, Ted Lewin, the illustrator of The Always Prayer Shawl and more than a hundred other children's books, had been a professional wrestler. "That's how he put himself through school," says Oberman.
Oberman's eight books also include the children's books Lion in the
Lake (Peguis), which won the silver medal at the Leipzig International
Children's Book Fair, and TV Sal and the Game Show From Outer Space (Red
Deer Press); and A Mirror of a People (Coteau Books), an anthology of Jewish
Canadian writing that he edited. In his upcoming book, tentatively titled
Zaida Remembers Hanukkah (Boyds Mills), a grandfather tells the story of
Hanukka to his grandchildren, and about his experiences in war-torn Europe.
"For that one, I'm ondraft number 40." Oberman says. "But that's how I
like to write, I don't like to rush it".
HOW DID IT FEEL TO WIN THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD?
"It was like suddenly being told by a much larger community - a larger
Jewish community, a larger community interested in the immigrant experience.
a larger cultural community, and a larger book reading community - that
"we out here really like the book."
HOW DOES THE ALWAYS PRAYER SHAWL RELATE TO YOUR OWN LIFE?
I found my own grandfather's shawl in among my things at about the time that my son Adam was getting Bar Mitzvahed. It brought back a lot of memories of my grandfather, especially memories that I had of him at synagogue. He had brought the shawl with him from Russia before the Russian Revolution, and it was the only thing of his left from that time.
"I wrote The Always Prayer Shawl as a kind of Bar Mitzvah gift to my
son."
CAN YOU DISCUSS YOUR FEELINGS ABOUT THE STRENGTH OF TRADITION?
"The shawl is a gift that gets passed from one person to another, and from a person who never meets the person it's going to. So there's something wonderful about giving something that takes generations to arrive ....Whether it's a story, a prayer shawl, or your grandparents' Bible - it doesn't belong to us except in a kind of care taking sense. And we change the meaning of it somewhat. The meaning evolves and we're part of that evolution.
"To give another example. I've been teaching in a school for 17 years.
Pretty soon the building is going to change - there's going to be nothing
left of what it was - yet it's going to be the same experience, the same
place."
HOW DO YOUR WRITING, TEACHING, AND STORY-TELLING COMPLEMENT ONE ANOTHER?
"The combination is interesting. I've written a teacher's guide to The Always Prayer Shawl, which will he available from Boyds Mills. It gave me the opportunity to look at the story in a different way - as a teacher.
"I see my best writing as something that is meaningful to both children and adults. That [in itself] is one way I come together as a writer and a teacher."
Interviewed by Jeffrey L. Perlah