Modern Jewish History - Book Group

Parent Cafe
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<p>The purpose of this new thread is to start a book club/discussion group on the theme of Modern Jewish History - primarily the last 100 years or so. The impetus for this group came about on the Colleges for “B” Jewish Students thread - but this new discussion is open to all. As parents, we have a responsibility to embody the concept of L’Dor Vador - from Generation to Generation. Some of us have been lamenting that our teen-aged and young adult children are deficient in their understanding of the Holocaust and the birth of the State of Israel - which very quickly led to the realization that some of us have the same deficiencies, myself very much included. Studying Jewish history will give us the background we need in order to teach our children.</p>

<p>I want to give credit for the idea of a book discussion group and the suggestion of the first book to Samtalya. Her suggestion, which seems to make sense, is that we vary the topic from month to month choosing from issues such as the immigrant experience, the Holocaust, the birth of the State of Israel and modern Israeli politics. Each month we will need a volunteer to select the book and moderate the discussion. We might find it suitable to alternate between fictionalized accounts and more serious nonfiction books so as to appeal to a wide range of readers.</p>

<p>So, the book selected for March is an immigrant story, “Bread Givers” by Anzia Yezierka. We’ll give everyone a few weeks to read the book and then start the discussion in the latter half of March.</p>

<p>Feedback is welcome and we will tweak this thread as needed as we go along.</p>

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<p>A brief summary of “Bread Givers” is included in this link:</p>

<p>[Reform</a> Judaism Magazine - Books: For Discussion](<a href=“http://reformjudaismmag.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=1116]Reform”>http://reformjudaismmag.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=1116)</p>

<p>And some brief biographical info on the author:</p>

<p><a href=“http://users.drew.edu/wkolmar/FYS98/FYSWww/Studentswww/yezierska.htm[/url]”>http://users.drew.edu/wkolmar/FYS98/FYSWww/Studentswww/yezierska.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>My copy arrived from Amazon today - hope those of you who have expressed interest are all purchasing/borrowing the book.</p>

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<p>Great idea. Adding this book to my “to read” list.
Just finished Freedom for my regualr book club and Rashi’s Daughter Vol 1 (adn reading Vol2 now) for my temple book club.</p>

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<p>Finished the book this morning - kind of mixed feelings. I enjoyed parts that reminded me of my paternal grandparents and their experiences - but I also found some of the dialogue to be repetitive and tedious. How’s everyone else doing with it?</p>

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<p>have it on my Kindle and have just barely started it. I have to admit that the first couple of pages of dialogue weren’t inspiring, but I will stick with it just to be part of the conversation ;)</p>

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<p>I requested it from the library and it just came to my branch, so I picked it up. I started reading the Foreward, which is interesting, but I will skip to the book and start it tonight.</p>

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<p>I’m tempted to participate, but I think I may skip this one. The best novel I’ve ever read on the Jewish immigrant experience, by far, is Henry Roth’s “Call it Sleep,” which was published in 1934, although it didn’t begin to receive the acclaim it has now until it was re-published in the 1960’s. See [Amazon.com:</a> Call It Sleep: A Novel (9780374522926): Henry Roth, Alfred Kazin, Hana Wirth-Nesher: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Call-Sleep-Novel-Henry-Roth/dp/0374522928]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Call-Sleep-Novel-Henry-Roth/dp/0374522928).</p>

<p>It’s hard to imagine that this book could approach that one, although I certainly would like to read more about the specific experience of women in that setting. Kate (born Kaila) Simon’s Bronx Primitive is a wonderful book (a memoir of her childhood in the Bronx), although it takes place somewhat later, beginning about 1916 when she arrived from Warsaw with her family at the age of 4. There’s an excerpt you can read at [Grammar</a> & Composition - Article](<a href=“http://grammar.about.com/od/shortpassagesforanalysis/a/katesimonsketch.htm;]Grammar”>http://grammar.about.com/od/shortpassagesforanalysis/a/katesimonsketch.htm;) see also [Amazon.com:</a> Bronx Primitive: Portraits in a Childhood (9780140263312): Kate Simon: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Bronx-Primitive-Portraits-Kate-Simon/dp/0140263314]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Bronx-Primitive-Portraits-Kate-Simon/dp/0140263314). She wrote two additional memoirs continuing her story, which I’ve also read.</p>

<p>As I’ve mentioned before, my mother didn’t arrive in the U.S. until 1943, from Berlin by way of London, so her immigrant experience was nothing like all of this. But my paternal grandfather arrived in the U.S. in 1888 at the age of 13 months, grew up on the Lower East Side, and had to drop out of school when he was 13 to go to work in the garment business when his father (a capmaker from Lithuania) first fell ill, probably with the effects of mercury poisoning. So that part of my family history also has meaning for me.</p>

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<p>DonnaL: I will put Bronx Primitive on my reading list. My mom’s parents settled in the Bronx around that time. They came from Turkey.</p>

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<p>I started reading the book yesterday. Has anyone visited the Tenement Museum in the Lower East Side? Having been there helps me to visualize this story. </p>

<p>I am going to wait to finish the book before passing any judgements! For now, it seems to be a quick and easy read.</p>

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<p>The Tenement Museum is wonderful–the Italian family apartment is more recent than the Jewish family one so was even more evocative for me despite the ethnic difference. I’m going to try to get The Bread Givers out of local library today–so I can follow this discussion later intelligently even if I don’t participate.</p>

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<p>I share RVM’s thoughts on the book. Perhaps it is part of 1920’s writing style? I have not looked Dreiser or Sinclair Lewis lately to see if I would have the same reaction.</p>

<p>For those wanting a nonfiction account of the tenement era, Irving Howe’s World of Our Fathers is good.</p>

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<p>I think it’s a combination of period writing style and the desire to seem serous and literate in a society where that wasn’t expected.</p>

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<p>I finished this book today, and I found it thought provoking. My grandparents were all immigrants, but three of them died before I was eight. My remaining grandfather lived with my family until he died, which was after I was married. My parents thought that they were doing this for him, but they were really doing it for us, the grandchildren. What a gift - to hear his stories firsthand about his experiences in a schtetl in Russia, his illegal departure in the wake of being called to the army, and his immigration first to Copenhagen, then to Paris, and then to New York.
This book, in contrast, brings up a woman’s perspective. I would say that the book is more about her feminist views and her dysfunctional family than anything else. And, her feminist views seem to stem from her dysfunctional family! Yes, life was extremely hard, but the degree of arguing and fighting and kvetching in this family did no one any favors. It is amazing that the protagonist was able to transcend this and achieve some degree of success.
This made me realize that these patterns of arguing, kvetching and insulting were probably fairly commonplace among immigrant families - and they probably took place among one set of my grandparents (the grandfather that I knew) also. (My uncle wrote quite a graphic memoir describing some of these things, and other relatives, even across the globe, have corroborated these family patterns.) Yes, poverty is stressful but I believe that family members can still treat each other positively and respectfully within a setting of poverty. My mother worked very hard, with the cooperation of my father, to do her best to break family patterns such as these, and I worked hard too to get even further away from them. Despite these patterns, the second and third generation of Jews have succeeded in North America because of the tremendous emphasis on education that is inherent in our heritage.
As far as the writing style goes, I thoroughly enjoyed the syntax because it reminded me of my grandfather and the way that he spoke!
I try to speak of my grandfather often to my kids. Just tonight, my daughter told me that they were learning about the emergence of European socialism. Of course, I had to tell her how my 12 year old grandfather was a lookout in Russia when the Trotskyites were holding their meetings, warning the people if any Czarist soldiers or police were approaching.
Sorry if this rambled! I’d love to read other comments about the book!</p>

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<p>Forgive the diversion, but anyone interested in an Israel-centered lighter reading diversion, I recommend the series of novels by Daniel Silva about an Israeli superspy, the most recent of which is The Rembrandt Affair (although reading them in order is preferable if you have the inclination). I also note that the winner of 2010 Man Booker prize for best English novel, Howard Jacobson’s The Finkler Question, is now in paperback in the US. It is a mostly comic novel about different views of Jewish identity and the views of Jews and Israel in contemporary Britain.</p>

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<p>levirm - I wouldn’t say that I loved the book - but found bits of it enjoyable and it constantly reminded me of my paternal grandparents. Like your grandfather - mine also fled Europe - Poland in his case - to avoid the army. He met my grandmother in the lower East Side - and she was also from the same area of Poland. My grandmother worked in a factory sewing eyes on dolls! Grandfather worked in - and later owned - a bagel bakery. He took his religion very seriously - like the father in the book - walking to shul daily. </p>

<p>I had trouble with the way the parents in the book treated the girls - this was kind of contradictory to what I have witnessed - with the immigrant parents sacrificing for the children and pushing them to get an education. The father’s character was so unsympathetic - and I had a hard time finding much empathy for the mother either - as she watched daughter after daughter lose their loves and dreams - yet she did nothing. I’ve just always been taught that everything Jewish parents do is for their children (that Jewish guilt) and so these parents just seemed to fly in the face of what I would have expected an immigrant story to be about.</p>

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<p>I agree Rockvillemom, I think that this author was reflecting a very dysfunctional family situation and she appears to hate men! And, it is hard to sympathize with the mother, who stood by and allowed all of this to happen to her daughters. Did you read the foreward or introduction? Apparently, the author had one marriage annulled, and then married a second time but avoided the civil component of marriage so that she wouldn’t be encumbered by American laws of marriage. She separated from her husband and ended up shipping her very young daughter off to him so that she could have the freedom to write. Her daughter apparently wrote a biography of her mother.
As a trivial aside, my grandfather eventually ended up opening a business in an Italian (at the time) section of Brooklyn. My mother’s speech contains sprinklings of Yiddish, plus a few Italian words. One of her expressions is “Mameinu”. I always thought that this was Italian - because it sounds Italian. Plus, I never heard any other Jewish person say it. Well, it appeared in this book, so I suppose that it is Yiddish!
And, of course my grandparents pushed education for all of their children, including the girls!</p>

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<p>I finished the book earlier this week and as I am here at Starbucks this morning waiting for my s to finish the SAT, I have plenty of time to read this thread and post.</p>

<p>Levirm: No need to appologize for rambling I enjoyed your post.</p>

<p>I also enjoyed the book and I found it to be an easy enjoyable read. The first thing that surprised me was the father’s way of living life on earth in a manner focused on what he thought was following a roadmap to heaven. I am much more used to hearing my Christian friends sound focused on getting to heaven. This almost never comes up in discussions with my Jewish friends.</p>

<p>As Levirm and also as a 1st-2nd generation American my experience was the focus of each generation on allowing the next one to rise. Education was always the key that made this possible. The lack of respect for higher education seemed so contrary to my life experience. I think of the education priority as a universal Jewish priority through the ages so the lack of respect for this in the family portrayed was a surprise.</p>

<p>I was also surprised to see how the father in the story, while committed to study had virturally no sense of responsibility to support his family financially. Yet while on the surface it seemed he was disregarding his family, it seemed also that in his mind he was working to do what he thought was more important, secure their place in heaven. At least that was the best way I could find the good in him and resolve the descrepacy between his behavior and his pious focus.</p>

<p>While my family was nothing like the family in the book, my parents did frequently second guess my major life decisions. While there was a lot of pull and tug this did make me more resolute about the decisons I made. Incidentally, if I had allowed it, my parents could have prevented my marriage to my husband. I mention this because while it was not the case in all of the marriages that were foiled at least one of them wasn’t stopped by the parents. It was the lack of resolve of the daughter to pursue the relationship. Sara as the youngest had the opportunity to learn a few lessons about resolve from her older sisters as I did from my brother.</p>

<p>I thought the book did a good job of depicting the poor immigrant plight. It maybe gets into the root of the bargaining Jewish stereotype. I however wonder why this is regarded as a Jewish trait when this type of bargaining is charactistic of poor communities in general.</p>

<p>When reading most of the book I kept feeling that the father in particular lacked depth as a character. I tried to understand what would make a person behave as he did. I thought it was interesting that as Sara evolved and acquired depth as a person she was also able to see her father with greater depth.</p>

<p>For me the book helped me think about the plight of the refugee immigrant. How difficult it must be to leave what one knows for the unknown. How shocking it would be to arrive in America the place where everything was possible to find the struggle ahead. I thought about how difficult it would be for a fathers to be in a place where he is supposed to be creating a great life for his family and they are met with woe. While poverty and disappointment aren’t an excuse for bad behavior it can definitely facilitate it especially if an individual is trying to cover up what they see as their own failure.</p>

<p>In the end I found myself feeling greatful to my grandfather who without the ability to read and write and with very poor English was able to establish a fruit business and keep my mother’s large family from really feeling the effects of the Great Depression. I also felt greatful to my own father who arrived from the war torn Pacific with virtually nothing and had us never know anything about really doing without. I wish he had lived long enough to see how far he brought us.</p>

<p>Now then only about ten minutes left to go back to the school my S is testing at. Thank you for helping me pass this time so pleasantly!</p>

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<p>Spectrum, that was a very thoughtful post. I think the courage of the immigrants of all faiths cannot be overestimated.</p>

<p>I do not think, however, that most of the immigrants were surprised by the difficult times they encountered. In talking to grandmother when I was young, she (who came here with $10, no relatives and no English at 13) told me that the hard times came as no surprise. She thought the version in some books and movies of immigrants thinking “streets are paved with gold” was wrong. Her memory was that what they were fleeing from was awful they expected hard times, but the chance to not starve or be killed in pogroms and that was sufficient.</p>

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<p>Interestingly enough, my library has the first edition of the book, from 1925.</p>

<p>I’m about a third of the way through and expect to finish it this weekend. Easy read. </p>

<p>I’ve only skimmed the long posts above because I want to finish the book before I read others’ perspectives on it.</p>