H eadlines
Soon-to-be 98-year-old Hits the Books
L OCA L
ANDY GOTLIEB | JE MANAGING EDITOR
IDA ROTHENBERG didn’t
have time to read when she
was raising her two daughters,
volunteering and working at
Saks Fifth Avenue.

But the soon-to-be 98-year-
old Wynnewood woman is
making up for lost time during
the pandemic, reading about 90
books in the last 13 months.

“It’s like a drug. I’ll only read
two chapters, look up and it’s
lunch,” she said. “I read all day.

I never gave it a second thought.

It’s just what I did.”
Her reading prowess first
garnered some recognition when
daughter Karen Seltzer posted to
a Facebook book group a picture
of her mother standing by a pile
of books she had read. Group
members and a few authors
began sending books her way,
feeding the habit.

“She was never a get-in-bed-
and-relax type of person, but
now she props herself up in bed
and has a stack of books with
her,” Seltzer said.

Rothenberg isn’t picky about
what she reads — “whichever
one is on top of the pile” — but
is a fan of, among others, Mary
Higgins Clark, John Jakes, David
Baldacci, Harlan Coben and Lisa
Scottoline. At the moment, she’s
reading an autographed copy of
the latter’s new offering, “Eternal.”
“I can’t put it down,” she said.

“It’s different than anything she’s
done before.”
Rothenberg can’t cite a
favorite pandemic book, but
she did praise Rabbi Lynnda
Targan’s “Funny, You Don’t
Look Like a Rabbi: A Memoir of
Unorthodox Transformation,”
which Targan sent her.

“I thought that was a fantastic
life she had and was having,”
Rothenberg said.

A native of Philadelphia,
Rothenberg grew up in Northern
Liberties, graduating from now-de-
funct William Penn High School.

After marrying at 18, she followed
her husband, Mickey Sobelman,
during World War II to military
bases in North Carolina and
Texas. At Laredo Army Airfield,
she visited the motor pool and
ended up getting a job driving a
transport bus with a tricky clutch.

After the war, the couple
moved back to West Philadelphia
and raised a family. Rothenberg
worked at Saks for 25 years
and volunteered extensively at
Deborah Heart and Lung Center.

Mickey Sobelman’s mother,
Sonia, was active in Deborah’s early
days at a sanatorium for tuber-
culosis patients, and Rothenberg
formed and was the first president
of a Deborah chapter in the 1950s,
Seltzer said. Other family
members have been active with
Deborah over the years.

The couple moved to Florida
in 1982, and Sobelman died
in 1993. Rothenberg remar-
ried, returning to Philadelphia
a decade ago after her second
husband, Harold, died.

Over time, Rothenberg has
gotten more and more into
reading. And with the end of the
pandemic in sight, Rothenberg,
who is vaccinated, looks forward
to resuming another of her
favorite pastimes — mahjong.

“I hope I remember how to
play,” she said.

In the meantime, she’ll keep
reading, with another book
sent to her — Richard Plinke’s
“COVID-19 House Arrest” —
next on her list.

“I’m just overwhelmed and
happy people are thinking of
me,” she said. l
agotlieb@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0797
Ida Rothenberg and about 50
of the books she’s read during the
pandemic Photo by Karen Seltzer
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APRIL 15, 2021
11