Surviving cancer, giving back

On October 3, Tracey Hoberman rang the bell at the Morristown Medical Center.

For cancer patients, ringing the bell marks the end of a major course of treatment. In Ms. Hoberman’s case, it was a difficult but lifesaving treatment for a rare, aggressive form of leukemia with which she had been diagnosed the previous February.

Exactly a month after his wife, surrounded by her family, rang that bell, Jason Hoberman received notification that he had been accepted into the 15-member Blood Cancer United Fundraising Team in Training for the Boston Marathon on April 20.

“We knew immediately when Tracey’s prognosis was positive that when she got through the treatment, we were going to want to do something to give back,” Mr. Hoberman said.

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“And I have always wanted to run the Boston Marathon. I knew there was no way I was going to qualify based on my speed. But fundraising is another way to get in, and so a few days after Tracey rang the bell, I applied to the fundraising team of Blood Cancer United, formerly the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. It was an obvious charity to choose.”

The Hobermans, who have lived in Scotch Plains for 18 years, set a goal of raising $52,400 — $2,000 per mile — and when they reached that goal in 26 days, they decided to try for $100,000. At the time of this writing, pledges top $62,500, with more than 100 days to go.

“We are now trying to broaden our reach to the greater community in the hopes of raising awareness and getting more donations so that we can help fund research to continue making advances in medicine so that years from now other people can stand a chance battling an aggressive blood cancer,” Ms. Hoberman said.

“In the short time since I rang the bell in October, my oncologist has already said they are starting to try new treatments where people wouldn’t have to stay in the hospital for a month. There is hope that it could be easier for someone else in the future.”

The first stage of her course of treatment for acute promyelocytic leukemia required five weeks of hospitalization. The second stage involved seven months of oral medication and daily arsenic trioxide infusions as an outpatient on a four-weeks-on, four-weeks-off basis until the cancer was in remission.

When she rang the bell on her final day, she and her husband and their two teens — Ashley, 19, a sophomore at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and Reid, 15, a freshman at Morristown Beard School — wore huge smiles and T-shirts that said it all: “Tracey: 1, Leukemia: 0.”

It had been a rough eight months for the family since Ms. Hoberman’s diagnosis in February, punctuated by the death of Mr. Hoberman’s father in May.

The year 2025, Mr. Hoberman said, “was just brutal for us, and the outpouring of help and support from our community was what really got us through.”

The forms of help and support covered just about every need. “It was a testament to how strong our community is,” he continued. “We are so thankful for the relationships that we’ve built over the years.”

During Ms. Hoberman’s hospitalization, a local kosher butcher took it upon himself to deliver food regularly to the Hoberman home. The family also received donations and DoorDash gift cards from friends and acquaintances in the community.

For the seven months that she was in outpatient treatment, she rarely had to drive herself to the hospital, Ms. Hoberman recalled. “I have an incredible group of friends who would drive me, keep me company during my infusions, and keep my spirits up. I don’t know how I would’ve gotten through this without them.”

All these acts of kindness enabled Mr. Hoberman to continue working; he is the general counsel and chief compliance officer at Jacobs Levy Equity Management in Florham Park.

When his father died, there was another round of prepared food deliveries, much of it from the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest and the JCC of Central New Jersey. Both Hobermans have long been active in these organizations as well as in their shul, Congregation Beth Israel of Scotch Plains.

In fact, Ms. Hoberman was still serving her two-year term as president of the JCC, which ran from 2023 to 2025, when she was diagnosed and had to take a medical leave of absence from that role from February to April. She now sits on the JCC’s board of directors and its executive committee.

“Jason and I co-chaired the annual fundraisers at the JCC from 2015 to 2017, raising significant money for the agency,” she said. They also were the vice chairs of the federation’s centennial mission to Israel in July 2023.

The couple sits on the board of Congregation Beth Israel, of which Mr. Hoberman is a past president and now chair of its Kol Nidre campaign. He also is on the executive committee of the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest and the board of directors of Jewish Family Service of MetroWest. Ms. Hoberman served on the Women’s Philanthropy Board of the federation for many years and co-chaired the JCC’s Philanthropy Committee.

“We are clearly not strangers to the world of fundraising,” Ms. Hoberman said.

Which brings us back to the Boston Marathon.

“In addition to our passion for helping the Jewish community, Jason has a passion for running,” she explained.

The running bug bit him in 2010 in an unexpected way, when his parents gave a Wii Fit exergaming system to Ms. Hoberman for Chanukah. “I never touched it,” she recalled with a laugh. “Jason just started using it for fun.”

Here, Mr. Hoberman interrupted his wife to relate that his initial experience wasn’t fun at all.

“The Wii Fit has a balance board that you step on and one of the things it does is it weighs you,” he said. “The first time I stepped on this thing, the program says to me, ‘That’s obese.’ I was in my mid 30s, but this hurt my feelings as if I were a teenager. And I was like, ‘I’ll show you, you Wii Fit!’ That was part of my motivation to start running — a video game telling me I was obese.”

He soon progressed from running in place at home to running outdoors.

“Jason went from basically not being athletic at all to running eight marathons — New York City, Virginia Beach, Atlantic City, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Eugene, Napa, and Richmond,” Ms. Hoberman said. “I’m really proud of him,” Ms. Hoberman said. He’s also competed in overnight relay races.

“Tracey and I are very passionate about giving back to our community because it’s given us so much,” Mr. Hoberman said. “Running the Boston Marathon to raise money for this cause seemed like a natural combination of my two passions.

“We consider ourselves so lucky that there was this treatment for Tracey. It was a terrible time, but it could have been so much worse. And we’re so grateful that she was able to ring the bell. So if we can give that to other people, it would bring us such happiness.”

The address for Mr. Hoberman’s fundraising page is https://www.givengain.com/champion/jason-hoberman-1387871. Find it by going to givengain.com/discover and searching for Jason Hoberman.