Bread Givers

"Bread Givers" is a 1925 novel by Anzia Yezierska.

ynopsis

"Bread Givers", a Jewish-American female coming-of-age story written by Anzia Yezierska, begins with a 10-year old Sara Smolinsky. Sara lives with her mother, Shenah, her father, Reb, and her three sisters, Bessie, Fania, and Mashah in the Lower East Side tenement of New York City. As the story opens, the Smolinksys are destitute, with the 5 women struggling for money to simply survive and Reb concerned only with the study of the Jewish sacred texts. The opening chapter depicts the family's financial struggles and the Smolinsky family dynamics. Additionally, this chapter hints at the struggle between Sara, who yearns for American ideals independence, and her father, who clings obsessively to traditional Jewish culture.

The following three chapters center on Reb's complete domination of Sara's three sisters as they each fall in love, have their suitors rejected by their father, and end in arranged marriages. These marriages, arranged by Reb for his financial comfort, bring the three daughters great misery. Sara witnesses the devastation her father causes her sisters and vows that she will not follow in their footsteps.

The next chapters detail the family's further financial misfortune as Reb struggles to understand American business practices and is continually hoodwinked. The tension between Reb and Sara escalates quickly when she is forced to move to a new town and work in her father's store, where Reb constantly displays his inaptitude for business yet refuses to take advice from his wife and Sara. Eventually, Sara moves back to New York City and decides she wants to become a teacher.

While living with her parents, Sara primarily experienced Jewish-American culture. However, her college experience is where she first interacts solely with the predominantly American culture. In order to pay for school and get good grades, Sara must ignore everything else, including her family, to work and study. Slowly and painfully, Sara learns to talk, dress and act like her American peers. She leaves college with her teaching degree and $1000 which she won in an essay contest.

Feeling successful, Sara returns home (only a short distance physically, but light-years apart otherwise) to find her mother fatally ill. After her mother's death, her father remarries only to find his new wife is a gold-digger. Sara and her sisters, still furious over their father's treatment of them, become enraged at his quick marriage after their mother's death and refuse to help him when his new wife treats him horribly. Sara goes back to New York, finds a teaching job and eventually falls in love with the principal of her school, another Jewish Polish immigrant named Hugo Selig. Sara feels she has left her old life completely behind until she finds her father practically on his deathbed literally lying in the gutter. The book ends with Sara and her husband inviting her father to live with her.

etting

The text takes place in the 1910s and early 1920s. By the 1920s, 2.2 million Eastern European Jews had immigrated to New York City, creating a culture clash between the Americanized Jews and the Eastern European Jews. The Eastern European Jews were typically perceived as more conservative and traditional than the Americanized Jews. The 1910s and early 1920s were marked by problems of immigration and poverty, unsafe working conditions, sweatshops and the beginning of the women's movement. For Jewish Americans, the 1910s and early 1920s signaled the beginning of the Jewish women's movement, the beginning stages of movement into the middle class and a flight toward secular Judaism.

The story takes place in three distinct settings: the tenements on New York's Lower East Side, the town of Elizabeth, New Jersey, and Sara's college. The tenements on New York's Lower East Side supplied an instant Jewish-American community for the tenants. They housed the working-class Jews and the floor a family lived on often told of their financial status, with the top floor representing the highest status. People from the same culture tended to dominate sections of tenements, creating an island of sorts in the midst of New York City in which they were surrounded by their familiar culture. In Elizabeth, New Jersey, the family is somewhat more exposed to the American culture as they interact with white customers. The move is particularly tough for Sarah and her mother as the community of women in the New York City tenements is absent in Elizabeth. Sarah becomes entirely isolated from her culture when she leaves for college.

Judaism in "Bread Givers"

In Reb and Sara, the reader can see the clash between traditional and assimilated Jews. Reb Smolinsky represents traditional Eastern European Jews, while Sara represents the Americanized Jews. Reb Smolinsky relies heavily on teachings from the Talmud for his life view and these teachings often make their way directly into the text. Additionally, he often uses the sacred texts to justify his domination of his wife and daughters. There is a particular connection between "Bread Givers" and the stories of Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa, the Rabbi's wife and the Rabbi's daughter. Reb is clearly associated with Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa and Shenah with the Rabbi's wife. However, while Sarah is clearly associated with the Rabbi's daughter, she is the antithesis of the daughter.

Opinions and interpretations

Most critics agree that "Bread Givers" is a coming-of age story. However, Nicholas Coles explains how it fits into the working-class literature genre as well. While some scholars believe the ending of the novel represents Sara's success in American culture (Evelyn Gross-Avery, Melanie Levinson), other scholars believe the ending explodes the notion that Sara can ever escape her Jewish heritage (Steven J. Belluscio, Renny Christopher, Gay Wilentz). Additionally, while many of the critics already mentioned believe "Bread Givers" is largely autobiographical, Carol Schoen has been careful to point out that Yezierska's actual autobiographical information doesn't quite match up, largely due to Yezierska's own deceptions about her history.

References