Edith Gideon January 6, 2024

Edith Weiss Rozyne Gideon died peacefully in the early morning of Saturday, January 6, 2024, at the Hannah B.G. Shaw Home in Middleborough, Massachusetts. She was 93.

Edie was born in 1930 in Dusseldorf, Germany, to Michael and Helen (Schaja) Weiss. Fleeing Nazi Germany, the family moved first to Maastricht, the Netherlands, then to East Orange, New Jersey. Her father, a wine merchant, was warned by colleagues on a trip to the United States not to return to Europe. He sent word to his wife to sell all they had and bring their four young children to meet him in the United States. The U.S. quota for German immigrants was already filled. But Edie’s mother, Helen, had been born in Strasbourg, which Germany returned to France after World War I. She was able to enter the United States under the quota for French immigrants. In 1939 Edie and her family boarded the S.S. Statendam to make their escape from Europe.

Edie attended Adelphi University in Garden City, New York, graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan, and earned a master’s degree in early childhood education from Montclair State University in New Jersey. As a young adult, she lived in Tel Aviv, where she met her husband, Yehezkiel Rozyne. He was captured while working with the Polish Underground during the war and was incarcerated in Auschwitz and then Dachau, where he was liberated by U.S. troops in 1945. They had one son, Michael Aryeh Rozyne, who was six months old when Yehezkiel died unexpectedly.

Edie returned with her infant son to live near family in New Jersey, where she taught at the Playhouse Cooperative Preschool in West Orange. There she worked closely with the late founder Jeanne Ginsberg, a visionary in early childhood education, who became her lifelong friend. Edie’s teaching philosophy was to listen closely to her preschoolers, see who each individual child was, then teach with that child’s essence in mind. She applied the same approach to all her relationships.

In 1971 Edie married Walter Gideon, moved to Flossmoor, Illinois, and became a parent to four more teenagers: Mark, Eric, Barbara, and Yvette. She taught at and later directed the preschool program at Temple Anshe Sholom in Olympia Fields, Illinois, and was a member of the National Council of Jewish Women.

In 1993 she moved to South Easton, Massachusetts, to be nearer to her grandchildren. She taught with the Catholic-run English as a Second Language program in Brockton. She was active in the Sharon/Stoughton Hadassah chapter and Congregation Agudas Achim in North Attleborough. In 2001 she studied for and became an adult bat mitzvah, which was not permitted for girls when she was growing up.

She loved baking and was known for the delicious rugelach and marble cakes she made for holidays and celebrations. She also enjoyed listening to classical music and attending Tanglewood concerts with her sisters. Later in life, she sang in Hannah’s Chorus at the Shaw Home and was well-known for singing and humming old melodies throughout the day, up till her last evening of life. Her family and friends will fondly remember her as cheerful, thoughtful, loving, and always optimistic yet firm in standing up for herself and her beliefs.

Edie is survived by her son, Michael Rozyne, and daughter-in-law, Kimberly French, of Middleborough, Massachusetts; two grandchildren, Shaya French of San Francisco and Liza French of Worcester; nephew Paul Hostovsky, of Medfield, and niece Iska Ziver of Ithaca, New York. In addition, she is survived by members of the Gideon family: Mark and wife Karen and their sons Max and Zachary; Eric and his three children, Jake, Ben, and Erika; Barbara; Yvette and husband Rodger Sonneborn, their sons Dustin and Lucas, and their grandson Moses.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Yehezkiel Rozyne; her parents, Michael and Helen Weiss; her sisters, Regina Hostovsky and Hannah Ziver; her brother, Hank Weiss; and her ex-husband, Walter Gideon.

Services will be held at 11 a.m. on Friday, January 12, at the Schlossberg Family’s Chapel on the Hill, 824 Washington Street in Canton, with Rabbi Talya Weisbard Shalem officiating. Burial will follow at the Temple Israel Cemetery, 1000 Pearl Street, Brockton.

The family is also planning a celebration of Edie’s life in the spring, with a curated presentation of a family oral history that has been collected over decades.

The family expresses their deepest gratitude to the staff of the Hannah B.G. Shaw Home for their compassionate care.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Edie’s name to the Playhouse Cooperative Preschool, 88 Franklin Avenue, West Orange, NJ 07042, www.playhouseonline.org.