Context→

Anzia Yezierska was born sometime between 1880 and 1885 in a small Polish village. Her father was a Talmudic scholar, and the large family lived on the money her mother made from peddling goods, as well as on contributions from neighbors, who honored the way the family supported their studious and holy father.

Yezierska and her family immigrated to New York City in around 1890. Her brother Meyer, one of Yezierska’s eight siblings, had come over several years earlier and changed his name to Max Mayer. He gave his new surname to his family, so for a time, Anzia Yezierska became Hattie Mayer. Young Hattie had a variety of jobs, first peddling homemade paper bags on Hester Street and later becoming a laundress, waitress, and sweatshop worker. Rebelling against her parents’ wishes that she assume a traditional path, she left home at age seventeen to live at the Clara de Hirsch home for working girls—one of the city’s charitable shelters. She continued her education and earned a four-year scholarship to study domestic science at Teachers College at Columbia University in New York City. Though bitterly disappointed that in many cases “domestic science” meant nothing more than cooking classes, she graduated and went on to hold a succession of teaching jobs before leaving for a time to room at the socialist dormitory of the Rand School, also in New York City. There, she socialized with well-known, outspoken women, such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and absorbed iconoclastic ideas about marriage and women’s independence that expanded and strengthened her own views. During this period, Yezierska married two times: she had the first marriage annulled, and she left the second after three years. The second marriage yielded a daughter, Louise, whom Yezierska eventually left for her former husband to raise.

Yezierska published her first story in 1915, and she began receiving wide recognition for her writing in 1919. She published her first novel, Salome of the Tenements, in 1923. In each of her books, Yezierska worked to recreate the feelings of the immigrant girl she had once been, trying to break away from the oppressive strictures of her religion and make a place for herself in a new land. Yezierska also recalled the conditions she’d grown up in by repeatedly echoing the tumultuous relationship she had with her father, whom she respected for his holiness but resented for his complete rejection of her work. She continued to revisit the distance between her and her father in her books, even as critical response dimmed and friends begged her to find something new to write about. Yezierska’s final published book, a fictionalized autobiography, Red Ribbon on a White Horse, was one last retelling of the story she had spent her entire life writing. She died in 1970.

Though Yezierska achieved a measure of success during her lifetime, it was always a struggle. In America, she had to overcome many obstacles that weren’t so different from the obstacles Jewish women had to face in her home county—that is, she had to fight for the privilege of being independent. Usually, the only aspect of the American dream available to women was the expectation of marriage and motherhood, varied only by a factory job or, if the girl was lucky, work as a typist or a salesgirl. The highest aspiration for a Jewish girl was to become a teacher, a goal that went against many of the norms at the time. However, becoming a teacher meant the family had to support her in school until she was eighteen or nineteen, and most immigrants couldn’t afford such an expense, even with the promise of future returns. If a choice had to be made between sending a daughter or a son to college, parents often chose to send the son because of both religious beliefs and economic reality.

The old world and new world were in complete agreement on what a woman should be allowed to do with her life, and Yezierska had to fight to pursue a different path.

Certain factors, however, precluded the permanence of such a restricting arrangement for women. Instead of becoming shy, submissive workers, generations of Polish women became aggressive and articulate, more than capable of holding their own in the world. With the men secluded in religious study, wives and daughters assumed much of the economic burden. They brought in the wages, spotted cheats, haggled over prices, and slowly but surely learned skills that left them better able to transverse the wider world. These women then immigrated to America, full of stories of people with similar skills who had managed to shape new lives for themselves. Though it didn’t happen immediately, Jewish women began to be tempted by the possibility of new lives, and they focused on education as the logical starting point for building them. Some Jewish girls, Yezierska included, left home to pursue their dreams; others persuaded their mothers to persuade their fathers to allow them to do so. Whatever the method, Jewish girls began to take the first step in finding their own identity, and by 1916, more than half of the Jewish graduates of Hunter College, one of the prominent schools in the New York City area, were women.

Plot Overview→

The Smolinsky family is on the verge of starvation. The older daughters, Bessie, Mashah, and Fania, can’t find work, and Mashah spends what little money she has to make herself look more beautiful. Their father, Reb Smolinsky, doesn’t work at all, spending his days reading holy books and commandeering his daughters’ wages—his due as a Jewish father. When Mrs. Smolinsky despairs over the situation, the youngest daughter, Sara, promptly goes outside to sell herring and makes the family some money. Later, the older girls find jobs, and Mrs. Smolinsky rents out the second room, improving the family’s financial situation.

Quiet, dutiful Bessie soon falls for a young man named Berel Berenstein and invites him home for dinner one night. The rest of the family is excited for Bessie, but when Reb Smolinsky finds out, he decides he can’t live without the wages Bessie brings in. Though Berel is willing to marry Bessie without a dowry, her father says Berel must also pay for the entire wedding and set him up in business as well. Berel refuses and storms out. When he says Bessie should defy her crazy father and marry him at City Hall, Bessie says she doesn’t dare. Berel promptly gets engaged to someone else, crushing Bessie’s spirit.

Mashah is the next daughter to find a romance that Reb Smolinsky considers inappropriate. She falls in love with Jacob Novak, a piano player from a rich family. Mashah’s father disapproves of the match and blackmails Jacob into staying away for several days, breaking Mashah’s heart. When Jacob comes back to beg for forgiveness, Mashah feels defeated enough to stand by and let her father kick Jacob out for playing piano on the Sabbath. Reb Smolinsky also disapproves of Fania’s sweetheart, a poor poet named Morris Lipkin, and shames him away. He then arranges marriages for all three girls, which leave them all desperately unhappy. Sara is furious with her father for what he’s done to her sisters, but her age and gender leave her powerless.

Despite Mrs. Smolinsky’s warning, Reb Smolinsky takes all of the money he got from Bessie’s marriage and sinks it into a grocery store that the previous owner had filled with fake stock. Sara and Mrs. Smolinsky must again scramble for survival, and each day they endure

increasing criticism from Reb Smolinsky. One day, Sara reaches her breaking point. She runs away from home and decides to become a teacher. She plans to live with either Bessie or Mashah, but both have been beaten down by poverty and bad marriages. Instead, she rents a small, dirty, private room of her own. To pay for it, Sara finds a day job in a laundry, using her nights to study and take classes.

The life Sara has chosen is not easy. She faces discrimination for being a woman and living alone; her fellow workers ostracize her; her mother begs her to come home more often; and her unhappy sisters nag her to find a husband of her own. On top of all this, Sara is desperately lonely, and when she is visited by an acquaintance of Fania’s, Max Goldstein, she nearly marries him and gives up her dream of seeking knowledge. When she realizes Max is interested only in possessions, however, she refuses him. When Reb Smolinsky hears of this, he’s so furious with Sara that he promptly disowns her.

College is another struggle against poverty and loneliness, but Sara wants so badly to be like the clean, beautiful people around her that she perseveres and graduates. She gets a job in the New York school system, buys nicer clothing, and rents a cleaner, larger apartment as a celebration of her new financial independence. Her excitement ends quickly, however, when she learns that her mother, whom she hasn’t visited in six years, is dying. Though her mother’s deathbed wish is that Sara take care of her father, Reb Smolinsky quickly gets remarried to Mrs. Feinstein, a widow who lives upstairs. His daughters are deeply offended by this insult to their mother, and after Mrs. Feinstein tries to extort money from her new stepchildren, all of them decide to stop speaking to their father.

Furious at her unexpected poverty, Mrs. Feinstein writes a nasty letter to Hugo Seelig, the principal of Sara’s school. The letter, however, actually draws Hugo and Sara together, and their bond tightens as they talk of their shared heritage in Poland. This new relationship finally marks the end of Sara’s loneliness, and in her new happiness, she decides once again to reach out to her father. Hugo does this as well, and the novel ends with the implication that Reb Smolinsky will soon escape his new wife by moving in with Hugo and Sara. Sara’s life has come full circle.

Character List→Sara Smolinsky -  The youngest Smolinsky daughter and narrator of Bread Givers. The most fiercely independent of Reb Smolinsky’s daughters, Sara wants more than any of them to create a life of her own. Though she admires her father’s dedication and inner flame, she is also deeply resentful of his hypocrisy and the chances he has denied all his daughters. She develops crushes on men with similar dedication and fire, seeking a more willing and understanding role model than Reb Smolinsky, as well as a companion who will acknowledge and appreciate the identity she’s struggled to build. Sara is willing to work hard to get what she wants, but her ceaseless craving for companionship and tendency to romanticize her situation sometimes distract her from her ultimate goal.

Read an in-depth analysis of Sara Smolinsky.

Reb Smolinsky -  The head of the Smolinsky family and Sara’s major antagonist. Extremely dedicated in his religious beliefs, Reb Smolinsky has devoted his entire life to studying the Torah and other Jewish holy books. The spirit he gathers from these studies fills him with a holy light that leaves others in awe but causes family problems when Reb Smolinsky confuses

this spiritual knowledge with more worldly wisdom. His innocence often leads him to make foolish decisions that he refuses to acknowledge, insisting that a man as learned as he could never make such mistakes. After his wife dies, he remarries quickly and forces his daughters to remain with him as long as possible because he knows he needs someone to take care of him.

Read an in-depth analysis of Reb Smolinsky.

Shena Smolinsky -  Sara’s mother and Reb Smolinsky’s long-suffering wife. Shena is truly in awe of her husband’s holiness, though she complains bitterly about the poverty it forces on her. She also feels protective of her husband—he lives so much in his own world that it’s hard for him to function in the real one. She firmly believes a woman’s highest aspiration is to be a wife and mother, and despite her husband’s manipulations, she genuinely wishes to see her daughters settled into good marriages. Though she doesn’t understand why Sara desires a different route, she loves her enough to support her in the best way she can. Bessie Smolinsky -  The oldest Smolinsky daughter. Bessie is the major financial support for the family, and even at a young age she is worn out from constant stress and work. She despises her father for using up all her good years for himself but is afraid to leave because providing for others is the only life she knows. Resentful of her status as an old maid, Bessie finds joy in her eventual marriage to Zalmon only because of the affection that her youngest stepson, Benny, feels for her. The only reason Bessie agrees to marry Zalmon is that Benny needs her.

Read an in-depth analysis of Bessie Smolinsky.

Mashah Smolinsky -  One of the middle Smolinsky daughters. Mashah is extremely beautiful, and the rest of the family thinks she is vain. In fact, Mashah needs beauty to sustain her, and her own looks, as well as the music in the park, are the only resources she has. She falls in love with the music Jacob Novak makes before she even sees Jacob himself, and when he breaks her heart, he destroys her hope of finding any more beauty in the world. She wastes away to a worn, quiet shadow of her former self, and hints of her former spirit show only in her enjoyment of her children and the cleanliness of her small house.

Read an in-depth analysis of Mashah Smolinsky.

Fania Smolinsky -  One of the middle Smolinsky daughters. Comfortable with speaking her mind, Fania goes further than either Bessie or Mashah in defending her sweetheart. However, Fania is also more practical than her sisters and attempts to make her father’s choice of husband work for her. Ultimately unsuccessful, she complains bitterly about her marriage at every opportunity and, though she frequently derides Sara’s accomplishments, appears jealous of her sisters, as well. Though she lives across the country, Fania keeps in regular contact with her mother and sisters. Berel Berenstein -  The clothing cutter with whom Bessie falls in love. An ambitious young man who plans to open his own shop, Berel wants to marry Bessie because she’s a sensible, competent girl who would be a great help in running his business. Somewhat sporadic in his religious observance, Berel thinks anyone who clings to the old ways is crazy and has no patience for anyone who attempts to make him follow those ways. Hugo Seelig -  The school principal with whom Sara falls in love. An intelligent, well-respected man, Hugo is filled with the knowledge that Sara longs for and admires. A kind man who treats everyone with respect, Hugo puts far more value on his personal observations

about people than on what others might say about them. Hugo still feels a great bond with the old country and the customs he was raised with, and he holds Reb Smolinsky’s learning in awe. Morris Lipkin -  The poet with whom Fania falls in love. A pale young man with a shabby coat and a desperate need for a haircut, Morris believes strongly in the power of both love and poetry. When Reb Smolinsky forces Fania away from him, however, he becomes bitter enough to crush Sara when she comes to him with her own dreams. Morris earns a living writing for newspapers and spends his free time at the library. Jacob Novak -  The piano player with whom Mashah falls in love. The son of wealthy parents, Jacob has grown up with money but doesn’t share his father’s prejudice against those who haven’t. Though he cares deeply for Mashah, Jacob loves music more than anything else and will temporarily sacrifice even Mashah in order to continue performing it. Moe Mirsky -  The diamond dealer Reb Smolinsky chooses to be Mashah’s husband. A charming and generous man on the surface, Moe is in fact a calculating liar who will say anything to get what he wants. Unable to hold down a regular job, he emotionally abuses Mashah and thinks nothing of dining out and wearing fancy clothes while his wife and children starve. Zalmon -  The fish peddler Reb Smolinsky chooses to be Bessie’s husband. A basically honest man who desperately needs help caring for his children, Zalmon genuinely means to give Bessie everything he promises her during their courtship. However, he is too conservative to bother finding out what might actually win her over—one of many concerns he feels is too “Americanized.” Abe Schmukler -  The cloaks-and-suits dealer Reb Smolinsky chooses to be Fania’s husband. Abe substitutes expensive presents for genuine affection or attention, both during courtship and after he and Fania return to Los Angeles. A compulsive gambler, Abe uses his wife’s appearance to show the world how affluent he is. Max Goldstein -  Abe’s partner, who comes to New York to court Sara. A self-made businessman who is derisive of the education he never had, Max is completely focused on money, possessions, and potential profit. During his time with Sara, he flaunts his wealth and worldliness instead of showing any interest in her needs. Mrs. Feinstein -  Reb Smolinsky’s second wife. Originally a widow who lived above the Smolinskys’ place, Mrs. Feinstein pretends to be a supportive woman but truthfully cares only about financial gain. She feels life owes her a certain amount of wealth, and when she doesn’t get it, she takes vengeance on everyone around her. Analysis of Major Characters→

Sara Smolinsky

The driving force in Sara’s life is her desire to find her own version of the light she sees radiating from her father. As a child, she yearns for something that will inspire her, such as Morris Lipkin’s poetry briefly does. As a teen, she dreams of becoming a teacher so that all eyes will be on her the way they are on her father when he preaches. Later, she finds books that fuel her from day to day. When she gives up Max Goldstein because he would have stopped her education, she comforts herself with the thought that her sacrifice is like her father’s rejection of worldly success in order to study the Torah more fully. When she begins to understand what it takes to find an inner light, the first thing she wants to do is share it with him, believing he’s the only one who will truly understand. Knowledge, she decides, is what she wants more than anything in the world, and she devotes the same time and energy to obtaining it that her father does to studying his holy books.

During her quest for an internal flame, Sara hones her sense of fury at the injustices committed by others. Though she has no backing, she has the courage to protest at the restaurant when the cook gives her less meat because she is a woman. She is furious with both Berel and Jacob for hurting her sisters, and her hatred for her father begins when she sees the way he denies his daughters any chance to have lives of their own choosing. This need to fight injustice, however, is also what helps her reconcile with her father, and the first steps are inspired by her mother’s promise and the guilt Sara feels at returning home just as she is dying. Later, when Sara sees the way her father’s new wife treats him, she considers the possibility of once again living under one roof with her father, despite the tyranny she fears will re-enter her life. Her father’s light is threatened, and Sara knows better than anyone the importance of keeping it lit.

Reb Smolinsky

Having spent his entire life wrapped up in the study of the Torah and other holy books, Reb Smolinsky lives in his own private world of religious study, a world that is sometimes highly incompatible with the one in which the rest of his family lives. His days and nights are focused on the promise of heaven and offering charitable contributions to others, making him unable to see that on Earth, a man needs to make sure his own children are fed before he gives to strangers. In the holy works, men are good and kind, and they value the importance of study; he attempts to translate this awareness to a world where people don’t care what your excuses are for not paying them and try to cheat you on business deals. Even more damaging to himself and those around him is the fact that in his world of words, Reb Smolinsky is incredibly knowledgeable. He mistakenly believes this means that he is equally knowledgeable in the outside world, and he makes potentially foolish decisions without feeling the need to consult his much more sensible wife. If his decisions prove to have been poorly made, Reb Smolinsky refuses to admit this to himself and will allow the decision to degrade further rather than to confess that he might have been wrong.

Bessie Smolinsky

Bessie has been crushed for so long by the weight of responsibility and family duty that it is hard to determine any personality she might have had beyond that. She has no time for outside interests because she’s forced to work all hours of the day to keep her family fed and clothed. She also has no hope of a future escape because her father needs the money she brings in too badly to ever really let her go. Though it often seems, especially to Sarah, that this treatment has crushed Bessie’s spirit enough that all she’s capable of is mute acceptance, Bessie does in fact plan to run away rather than marry Zalmon, the fish peddler. However, that would leave Bessie on her own, trying to create a life for herself without ever having the opportunity even to discover what she might want to be a part of that life. Being left alone with so few internal resources very reasonably terrifies her, so she resigns herself to what little light can be reflected off of the people she serves. First it was her father with his holy light, then little Benny, the fish peddler’s son, whose eyes shone with something fresh and beautiful. Better to cling to the little light you have, she feels, than to risk seeking more and find you have nothing at all.

Mashah Smolinsky

Though her family suspects she is shallow and empty-headed, Mashah is instead simply a lover of beauty. She buys paper flowers, makes a special trip to listen to the free music in the

park, and lavishes attention on her face and figure simply because they are some of the few reliable sources of beauty available to her in her impoverished life. Sara says early in the book that Mashah seems to feed off her beauty the way other people feed off food, and the time she puts into keeping herself attractive is simply a way of keeping her food supply strong. She is first drawn to her great love, Jacob Novak, through the beautiful music he produces. She responds to that love by spreading beauty as far as she can: the house becomes cleaner and more organized, the table has fresh flowers, and the joy on her face brings light to all who know her. She puts so much effort into creating beauty for Jacob’s sake that when he leaves, her belief in beauty itself is crushed. Her spirit slowly drains away. She still keeps herself looking nice, but there is no longer any heart behind it.

Themes, Motifs, and Symbols

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Themes

The Hazards of Dependence

In Bread Givers, those who make someone else an integral part of realizing their dreams inevitably wind up being failed by the other person. Mrs. Smolinsky hopes that the grocery store will finally mean a steady income for her family, but her husband, who insists on making the purchase, allows the previous owner to scam him. Sara puts all of her young, romantic hopes into Morris Lipkin and the beautiful words he writes, only to have him crush her dreams with a curt rejection. Mashah puts all of her dreams of beauty and love into Jacob Novak, only to find that he is willing to sacrifice her for the sake of his music. Sara hopes to share her new dedication to knowledge with her father, but he disowns her for failing to get married. Reb Smolinsky marries Mrs. Feinstein with the hope that she’ll be as wonderful and dedicated a wife as Mrs. Smolinsky had been, but he finds himself trapped with a demanding, money-grubbing shrew who wants him to die. Only Sara’s dream of becoming a teacher, which depends only on Sara herself, is ever fulfilled.

The Conflict Between Independence and Family Obligations

In Bread Givers, familial duty is what most often holds characters back from getting what they really want. Bessie’s sense of duty to her father keeps her from accepting Berel’s proposal and running away with him, and Jacob Novak’s obligation to his father keeps him away from Mashah and makes him break her heart. Because of their obligations to family, both Bessie and Mashah lose the people they want to be with forever. After enduring years of her father’s mistreatment, Bessie nearly works up the courage to escape, only to be held back by the feeling that she is the only person truly willing to take care of young Benny. Sara, for her part, is nearly able to escape hazardous obligations by refusing to see her family while she goes to school, lest they say or do something that will divert her from her education. However, guilt over not being there for her sick mother leads Sara to feel that she has an obligation to care for her father, and with Hugo’s invitation for Reb Smolinsky to live with them, Sara will soon be living under her father’s command once again.

The Elusiveness of Happiness

Though several of the characters in Bread Givers have a goal or dream of some kind, achieving that goal isn’t necessarily the magic solution they hoped it would be. Bessie desperately longs to get married, but when she does, she finds that her life is filled with more unappreciated drudgery than it was when she was alone. Fania marries Abe with the hope that she can escape her father to the dream city of Los Angeles, only to find a life full of pointlessly expensive showpieces and incredible loneliness. When Sara rents her own room, she fantasizes about how wonderful and enriching it will be finally to have some space to herself, only to find herself desperately longing for someone to talk to. When her hard work finally pays off and she gets a teaching job, Sara is surprised to find that it doesn’t make her feel as complete as she hoped it would. Hugo Seelig seems to fill this hole, but his insistence that they would love to have Sara’s father live with them leaves her with a nagging fear that her independent identity will suffer.

Motifs

Inadequate Providers

Nearly all of the men in the novel fail to provide sufficiently for the women in their lives. Reb Smolinsky denies his family sufficient finances and wisdom, refusing to contribute any money to the household and either giving away or making foolish choices with the money his children bring in. According to Jewish faith, only men are allowed to study the Torah. Women are destined only to ease the lives of the men in their families, keeping them fed and clothed so they need to do nothing more than focus on the holy word. This service should be a woman’s highest aspiration, because the Torah teaches that it is only through a man that a woman can enter heaven. The men in a woman’s life define her very existence. The title of the novel, Bread Givers, refers to the inadequacy of the men in the Smolinsky women’s lives: though the women refer to men as “bread givers,” they themselves must do the largest share of the providing.

Reb Smolinsky’s wisdom also fails his daughters in another way, as his authority to choose their husbands traps his three oldest into unhappy and sometimes abusive marriages. Mashah’s husband fails her and his children in every way possible, denying them basic necessities while he can afford to eat out and buy himself fancy new clothing. Though Fania’s husband keeps her well fed and draped in fancy clothing, he holds so much back from her emotionally that she feels more alone with him than she did when she was single. Sara’s teachers at the college fail her academically, not willing to take any extra time to help her satisfy her voracious need for knowledge. None of these men give the women in the novel what they need to survive, leaving them either to perish or, as Sara did, to learn how to fulfill their own needs.

The Oppression of Women

Bread Givers is full of men and even women oppressing other women, so much so that many women consider oppression an acceptable way of life. Reb Smolinsky constantly berates his far-wiser wife for attempting to make decisions and demands all of his daughters’ wages for his own use. He denies his older daughters a chance at happiness, pushing their sweethearts away because he resents not having chosen them himself. Mashah’s husband emotionally abuses her and doesn’t allow her to defend herself or her children against his injustice. Max

Goldstein oppresses Sara in a more subtle manner, constantly attempting to deny her the right to have her own thoughts and opinions. Women even oppress other women. One refuses to rent Sara a single room because of her gender, and the female servers at the cafeteria consider her less worthy of meat than the man standing behind her in line. Sara must fight against this oppression nearly every moment of her life, which emphasizes her struggle to gain acceptance on the strength of her own identity.

The Yearning for Pleasure

At several points in Bread Givers, people express a desire to get out and enjoy life, though none of them ever seem able to fulfill that wish. After Bessie meets Berel, she tells her mother that they should save less and enjoy life more—but her ability to enjoy life is crushed when Berel leaves. Sara complains that instead of geometry she wants to learn subjects that will help her truly live her life, but she is taunted for that desire for the rest of her time in school. Fania berates Sara for studying by telling her she should get out and enjoy life, but Fania herself has admitted on several occasions that her own life gives her no pleasure at all. Sara nearly rejects her studying for Max’s sake because he makes her feel more fun and full of life, but she later discovers that Max’s pleasure is hollow and not dependent on any interest in Sara herself. The characters’ desire to live life is truly a desire to escape into a new life, a process that takes far more work than a simple wish.

Symbols

Internal Light

The internal light that several characters in Bread Givers either have or are seeking symbolizes their self-chosen purpose for living. Reb Smolinsky spends all hours of his day devoting himself to understanding the Torah and other holy works, and many people talk about the light that shines constantly from his face. This is especially true whenever he’s expounding on a scripture or holy principle. Love for Jacob Novak is what finally brings light to Mashah’s face, as she turns her time and energy from maintaining her own appearance to tending to Jacob’s every need. Yezierska talks about the innocent light that shines from young Benny’s face, and Bessie decides that caring for him will be the purpose that makes her marriage to an old fish peddler tolerable. Sara spends most of the novel struggling to get an education, hoping to find a purpose that will define her life the way religion defines her father’s. She admires Hugo Seelig so much because he is lit by that purpose. The light of knowledge shines from him and touches everyone he knows.

Solitude

For Sara, the chance to be alone represents the achievement of her own identity. When she was growing up, her father was always allowed time and space to be alone with his books while he forced the women to crowd together in the remaining available space. After finally defying her father and running away back to New York, the first thing Sara does is eat a meal with just herself for company, reveling in her independence. She believes that a room where she can be by herself, her next goal, will give her the chance to focus on studying and be free from the pressures of her family. She prefers solitude to being with Max because, though he is fun to be with, he tries to make her into a perfect little possession instead of the teacher she wants to become. When she does become a teacher, she buys another little room of her own to celebrate the experience. It is larger and much cleaner than the first, but more important, it’s

even quieter and more isolated, as safe from dirt and shouting as she wants her life to be from poverty and her past.

A “Real” Person

Sara spends most of the book wanting to become a “real” person, an unreachable state of being that symbolizes everything she believes a successful and happy person should be and have. Early in her life, a major qualification for being successful and happy is money. According to Sara, real people also sit down for dinner at a table and go out and earn their own money. This idea urges her at a young age to sell herring on the street. Later, being real means living on her own, where she has the space and the quiet to figure out who she’s supposed to be. When she finally becomes a teacher, she believes she is real for a while. However, Mr. Seelig shines with a greater internal light than she does, and she decides this light is what it takes to be real. In Sara’s mind, it’s impossible for her to become a real person: no matter what she does with her life, there will always be some better and more perfect thing to be

Important Quotations Explained→1. This door was life. It was air. The bottom starting-point of becoming a person. I simply must have this room with the shut door.

This phrase from Chapter X, when Sara finds the room she wants to rent, describes the bases on which Sara plans to build her new, independent life. The first of these is economic improvement, getting an education so she can later get a job that will pull her out of poverty. Practically, a private room will give her the quiet she needs to focus on her studying, which will help her get through school and on to her dreamed-of employment. Psychologically, the room helps keep Sara focused on the goal she is working so hard to achieve. Having her own room frees Sara somewhat from the pull of her family’s needs and expectations, which are so different from her own. The room also gives Sara a small taste of her completed goal. As Mrs. Smolinsky says earlier in the novel, in America only the rich can afford privacy. Sara values her first cramped, dirty bit of this piece of the American dream, and the solitude she’ll gain when she is a working teacher promises to be even more wonderful.

The room is even more important to the second base of Sara’s new life, the quest for her own identity. If Sara had stayed in her parents’ home, she would have remained what she had grown up being—a mere extension of her father’s will. Under Reb Smolinsky’s roof, his beliefs about a woman’s place in the world would always hold sway, and he would always have too much influence on Sara’s daily life for her ever to be able to escape those beliefs. If she had married someone like Max Goldstein, who wanted her merely as another possession, she would have become an extension of her husband’s will instead of her father’s. Her mother desperately worried about Sara’s single status, and though Fania hated her marriage, she worked tirelessly to push Sara into a similar state. If Sara had remained with any of these people, her own opinions and ambitions never would have survived. Only on her own, in her own little room, can Sara find the silence and the freedom necessary to discover who she is.

2. It says in the Torah: What’s a woman without a man? Less than nothing—a blotted out existence. No life on earth and no hope in heaven.

This comment is from Chapter XV, when Reb Smolinsky berates Sara for refusing Max Goldstein. Sara spends many of her formative years defying this teaching, declaring in a variety of ways that her existence is as strong and important as any man’s. Women are not supposed to judge men, yet at a young age, Sara interrupts the engagement party of Bessie’s former love, Berel, to curse him for hurting her sister, and she later grows to hate her father for hurting his daughters. She refuses to bow to her father’s will concerning store decisions she believes are wrong and defies him in a loud shouting match. Sara then runs away from home, hoping to live the life she chooses and not the one her father dictates for her. Despite her father’s strict disapproval, she also refuses to marry Max Goldstein, sensing that the marriage would stop her from fulfilling her dream. Sara pursues her goals using her own will on her own terms.

As Sara gets older, however, she begins to wonder whether her father’s words might hold a grain of truth. Sara is a total outcast in school and at work, left out of all social groups because of the way she has chosen to live her life. Society believes that girls her age should be seeking husbands, and no one is willing to accept or understand that Sara would much rather be on a quest for knowledge. She develops impossible crushes, first with Morris Lipkin and then with Mr. Edman, in an attempt to find a connection with someone. She’s so starved for male companionship that she nearly allows herself to be swept away by Max Goldstein, despite the fact that he can talk only about himself and belittles the education Sara is working so hard to achieve. Even the glories of a teaching job eventually begin to ring hollow, and not until Sara and Hugo Seelig become a couple do her descriptions of life regain their original glow. Though Sara is able to have a life on her own, she feels life is much richer when a man is involved.

3. I know I’m a fool. But I cannot help it. I haven’t the courage to live for myself. My own life is knocked out of me. No wonder Father called me the burden bearer.

Bessie makes this admission near the end of Chapter III, when she explains to Berel why she can’t run away with him, and it presents a complex picture of the forces that shape the lives of Bessie and many other women in Bread Givers. Outside forces and restrictions, rooted mainly in religion, are immeasurably influential in their lives. According to Judaism, women must dedicate their lives to men’s needs. If Bessie’s father chooses to call her a “burden bearer” for the family, she is then obligated to take on that role. This is the only way of life she and generations before her have ever known, and according to them and the community in which she lives, her very worth as a woman depends on this obedience and selfless dedication. Bessie must also deal with the guilt that comes from knowing that due to her family’s poverty and her father’s unwillingness to work, there is a distinct possibility that her family would literally starve without her.

The far more subtle and persuasive restriction, however, is Bessie’s own reliance on such a system. Unlike her sisters, Bessie has spent her entire life living for others until it gets to the point that filling other people’s needs is the only thing she knows how to do. Bessie stays with her father, as she explains, because he is truly helpless without her. Later, she attempts to run away from home but is called back by the needs of Zalmon’s youngest child, Benny, a little boy clearly desperate for a mother, which Bessie is capable of being. Berel, on the other hand, needed Bessie so little that he attempted to push Bessie into an ultimatum, and the moment she refused, he ran off and got engaged to someone else. He refused to understand that his lack of need would force her into an entirely new way of life, one she would need time and patience to learn. Without that time, there was nothing she could do but reject him.

4. I felt the shadow still there, over me. It wasn’t just my father, but the generations who made my father whose weight was still upon me.

This passage, given by Sara as the final line of the novel, suggests that despite her profession, her romantic partner, and the many gains she has made for herself, Sara’s struggle for an independent identity is far from over. Her once mighty father has become frail, and despite the alternatives Sara has tried to set up, the weight of expectation is pushing her into taking him into her own home. She knows it is what she has been taught to do, and the fiancé who has already moved her closer to cultural acceptance is so aware of the proper way of doing things that he assumes Reb Smolinsky will be moving in without a word of discussion. Though Sara can see the tyranny that will reenter her life, Hugo doesn’t understand, seeing only the community belief that serving their elders, particularly their male elders, brings blessings into the younger people’s lives. Despite how far she has come in developing her identity, the life her culture requires and expects is still waiting for her, ready to take advantage of the slightest slip in her vigilance.

Despite her dread, Sara still feels tied to her family. Her efforts to gain an education separated her from her family for six years, and the guilt she feels about coming back when her mother is dying lead her to promise to fulfill her mother’s last wish: to take care of her father. Feeling as though she failed her mother in life, Sara feels she has to sacrifice her own independence in order not to fail her mother in death. Also, Sara begins to teach herself to see her father through her mother’s eyes and to see that, despite his faults, he is a lonely old man whose internal candle is flickering out. Sara remembers this flame she was once so in awe of and wants to keep it lit, but to do so would bring Reb Smolinsky under her own roof and, she fears, restore to him the power he once had over her. In a way, her love proves to be just as solid a trap as her culture.

5. There was one in the school who was what I dreamed a teacher to be—the principal, Mr. Hugo Seelig. He kept that living thing, that flame, that I used to worship as a child. And yet he had none of that aloof dignity of a superior. He was just plain human. When he entered a classroom sunlight filled the place.

Though this statement, given by Sara early in Chapter XX, is describing the man Sara falls in love with, it also goes far in explaining the love-hate relationship Sara has with her father. According to Sara, the thing that drew her most to Hugo was the living flame that drove his teaching, the light that even passersby could see shining from him. Though Sara herself fails to note the comparison, Yezierska specifically mentions several times how the light shone from Reb Smolinsky’s face, even noting that this light was one of the qualities that first appealed to Sara’s mother. Sara has long admired this light of her father’s and seeks to find something similar for herself through her devotion to education. When she thinks she’s found it, after Max leaves, the first thing she wants to do is share it with her father. Even though he refuses the connection, Sara still can’t help but look for similar qualities in a potential husband.

Sara is careful to note at least one significant difference between herself and her father. Along with his light, one of the first qualities that drew Sara to Hugo was his humanity. Unlike Reb Smolinsky, who always set himself above the rest of his family and rejected his daughter’s attempts to reach out to him, Hugo is careful not to be seen as either aloof from or superior to the teachers and students with whom he worked. He treats small, grubby children with the same respect as learned scholars, a quality Sara reveres. Hugo respects Sara’s intelligence and

ability, not taking credit for her work and not pressuring her into doing something more traditional. He understands her in a way her father never did, fulfilling the need that sent her running away from home and kept her resolve firm, even after she was disowned. Hugo might not have the same prestige as Reb Smolinsky, but in Sara’s eyes, it is that very prestige that kept her father from being the support she needed him to be.

Key Facts→

full title ·  Bread Givers

author · Anzia Yezierska

type of work · Novel

genre · Coming-of-age; family drama

language · English

time and place written · New York City in the early 1920s

date of first publication · 1925

publisher · Doubleday

narrator · Sara Smolinsky

point of view · The narrator speaks in first person, focusing only on Sara’s thoughts, feelings, and perspective. Though the motivations of the other characters are occasionally discussed, the narrator usually gives only an objective view of their appearance and actions as they would appear to an outside observer.

tone · The narrator’s tone is passionate as she discusses her feelings, life, and family.

tense · Past tense

setting (time) · 1910s to early 1920s

setting (place) · New York City

protagonist · Sara Smolinsky

major conflict · Sara struggles to develop her own identity against the opposition of her father and culture.

rising action · After Reb Smolinsky crushes Sara’s sisters’ dreams in the name of culture, Sara becomes more and more aware of her father’s tyranny and injustice.

climax · After her father berates a minor decision of Sara’s, she can no longer take the constant scolding and restrictions, and she runs away to begin a new life.

falling action · Living on her own, Sara works to become a teacher and to reconcile her need for independence with her need for her father’s acceptance

themes · The hazards of dependence; the conflict between independence and family obligations; the elusiveness of happiness

motifs · Inadequate providers; the oppression of women; the yearning for pleasure

symbols · Internal light; solitude; a “real” person

foreshadowing

 · As a child, Sara develops a crush on Morris Lipkin because of the words he writes. Later, she develops a crush on another educated man, Mr. Edman, because of the words he speaks in class. · Despite her mother’s doubt, Sara makes a profit selling herring on the street. Later, Sara will achieve her dream of becoming a teacher, despite her father’s doubts. · Reb Smolinsky’s choice of husbands for his oldest daughters trap them in unhappy marriages. Later, the new wife he chooses for himself traps him in an equally unhappy marriage. · The girls at the laundry reject Sara, despite her attempts to dress like them. Later, the girls at the college also refuse to accept Sara when she attempts to look like them.

Are the Jews Victims or Persecutors?

“Half of Christendom worships a Jew; the other half worships a Jewess.”—Jewish editorial.

“If the gospel story is correct, Judas was a pretty decent sort of fellow. It was only after he had become a convert to Christianity that he became that which has made memory an accursed thing for nineteen hundred years.”—Jewish editorial.

“Our land is frequently called a Christian nation. No doubt the majority of our citizens believe this. No less an authority than Justice Brewer of the so expressed himself in 1892. But the statement is clearly false . . . . This is not a Christian nation. In inspiration, at least, it is a Hebrew nation, for the Constitution which we now enjoy traces back to the Hebrew Commonwealth.”—Jewish editorial.

(From the minutes of a meeting of the Committee on Families of the New of .)

Mr. Hebbard: “That is one of the things I have in mind, that a widow brings deliberately into her home a nameless child and the inevitable consequence of that is that her legitimate children are always thereafter pointed out.”

Miss Sophie Irene Loeb: “As far as nameless children are concerned, Christ himself was a nameless child. Let us get away from nameless children.”

Dr. Dirvoch: “I think where there are three or four children in a home and a little stranger enters that home without a father, you are corrupting the morals of those legitimate children by permitting them to remain in such surroundings.”

Miss Loeb: “I say to you that this committee, if it takes such an attitude as that, is one hundred years behind the times.”

Mr. Cunnion: “Anything against purity is immoral.”

Miss Loeb: “What has that to do with the question of purity? Was the mother of Christ pure?”

Mr. Cunnion: “Certainly.”

Miss Loeb: “He had no name!”

Mr. Cunnion: “You can’t bring that in here. We believe he was conceived without sin.”

Mr. Menehan (to Miss Loeb): “That is very wrong to make that statement.”—Cited in a letter of complaint to Mayor Hylan.

“The intimate relation of church and state in the great non-sectarian United received direct demonstration on August 12 (1913), when a deputy sergeant-at-arms of the Senate was hurriedly sent out to get a preacher of any old denomination to open the Senate with prayer. The session opening an hour earlier than usual, the regular chaplain was not at hand, but with still two minutes to spare the deputy returned in an automobile, hurried to the Vice President’s office and introduced the Rev. Dr. C. Albert Homas, of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, to Mr. Marshall just in time for the Vice President to lead the way into the Senate chamber to open the session at 11 o’clock, and once again the Union was saved. We shudder to think what might have happened if no preacher had been captured in time to open the session with prayer!”—Jewish editorial.

“President Wilson in his said: ‘The firm basis of the Government is justice, not pity.’ This is sound Jewish doctrine as laid down by Moses and the Prophets in contradistinction to the doctrine of love, as attributed to Jesus. This coming from so good a churchman as President Wilson might be a little surprising were it not that it is a well-known fact that whenever our Christian brethren want to talk to reasoning men they go to the for their inspiration.”—Jewish editorial.

“President Wilson at his inaugural gave another instance of the well-known fact that in solemn moments when they need comfort and inspiration, Christians turn to the Old Testament and not to the New. So President Wilson, when he kissed the bible after taking the inaugural oath, selected the passage, Psalm 46.”—Jewish editorial.

“Reference has frequently been made in these columns to a number of addresses made by the late Isaac M. Wise at the celebration in honor of his 80th birthday anniversary in the course of which he predicted that in a quarter of a century from that date (1899) there would be practically nothing left in Protestant Christianity of a belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ or the distinctive dogmas of Christianity, and that all Protestant Christians by whatever name they call themselves, would be substantially Jews in belief. To any one who notes the signs of the times it is apparent that this prophecy is being rapidly fulfilled . . . . The Jesus superstition and the fantastic dogmas built upon his supposed divine origin, die but slowly, but that they are dying is nevertheless apparent.”—Jewish editorial.

The subject of this article is “Religious Prejudice and Persecution—Are the Jews or Persecutors?” A study of history and of contemporary Jewish journalism shows that Jewish prejudice and persecution is a continuous phenomenon wherever the Jews have attained power, and that in neither action nor word has any disability placed upon the Jew equaled the disabilities he has placed and still contemplates placing upon non-Jews. It is a rather startling reversal of all that we have learned from our Judaized histories, but nevertheless, it seems to be the truth.

Attention is once more called to the fact that the Jews themselves are not raising the cry of “religious persecution” here or elsewhere, but they are allowing their “Gentile fronts” to do it for them—just as they have not denied the statements made in this series (among themselves they freely admit most of them) but let “Gentile fronts” do it for them. The Jews would not be averse to raising the cry of “religious persecution” perhaps, (provided they could make it stand) were they not afraid that it would call attention to their own persecuting activities. But their “Gentile fronts” have brought that upon them.

There is no Christian church that the Jews have not repeatedly attacked.

They have attacked the Catholic Church. This is of special interest just now when Jewish agents are doing their utmost to arouse Catholic sentiment in their favor by circulating charges which these agents personally know to be false. THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT has perfect confidence in the information which Catholic leaders may have on the Jewish Question. On this subject the Catholic priesthood is not misled.

Examples of this attack are numerous. “Half of Christendom worships a Jewess,” is not a statement but a slur, flung by Jewish men who say in the ritual of morning prayer: “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who hast not made me a woman.” The Talmudists’ discussions of the Virgin Mother are often vile. The Christian festivals, whose preservation is due to the Catholic custom and conscience, are all attacked by Jews.

The American Israelite, whose great prestige in American Jewry is due to its having been founded by Rabbi Isaac M. Wise, opposed the establishment of Columbus Day and berated Governor Hughes for signing the law making it a holiday in New York. The act that established it deserved “the contempt of thinking men.” Why? Is not the discovery of America a memorable event? Yes, but Columbus was a Catholic! However, in recent months the Jews are proving him to have been a Jew, so we may expect some day to see Columbus Day insisted upon with Jewish rites.

The Catholic Columbian made editorial reference to the increasing Jewish influence on the American press, in these words: “Jewry is getting its grip on the news of this country as it is on Reuter’s and the Havas agency in Europe.”—A perfectly polite and true observation.

But the Jewish editorial thunderer came back—“The Columbian, in its sneaking Jesuitical way, does not mention the fact that these (the Jewish) papers are the very cleanest in the country. The Columbian cannot point to a single daily owned by one of its co-religionists that begins to compare with the above papers.”

The sweet spirit here evidenced is very significant today when an appeal is being made to create a strong pro-Jewish Catholic sentiment.

If there is in the world any extra-ecclesiastical undertaking by Catholics which has won the undivided approval of the Christian world as the Passion Play of Oberammergau has done, the present writer does not know what it is. Yet in a volume entitled “A Rabbi’s Impressions of the Oberammergau Passion Play,” Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, D.D., of Philadelphia, has stigmatized that notable production as reeking with falsehoods and vicious anti-Semitism. In the rabbi’s eyes, of course, it is, for to him the entire Christian tradition is a poisonous lie. The whole fabric of Christian truth, specially as it concerns the person of Christ, are “the hallucinations of emotional men and hysterical women.”

“Thus,” says the rabbi (p. 127) “was invented the cruel story that has caused more misery, more innocent suffering, than any other work of fiction in the range of the whole world’s literature.” And thus the simple peasants of Oberammergau, presenting the Catholic faith in reverent pageant, are labeled anti-Semites.

These are not isolated instances. Antagonism to the Catholic Church runs throughout Jewish literature. The Jewish attitude was summed up in an editorial in the Jewish Sentinel of November 26, 1920, as follows: “Our only great historical enemy, our most dangerous enemy, is Rome in all its shapes and forms, and in all its ramifications. Whenever the sun of Rome begins to set, that of Jerusalem rises.” These, however, are matters well known to Catholic leaders.

In their turn the other Christian denominations have been attacked. When the Methodist Church put on a great pageant entitled “The Wayfarer,” Rabbi Stephen S. Wise played critic and made the solemn and silly statement that had he been a South Sea Islander (instead of the itinerant platform performer which he is) his first impulse after seeing “The Wayfarer,” would have been to rush out into the street and kill at least three Jews. It says a great deal, perhaps, for the channel in which Rabbi Wise’s impulses run, but the tens of thousands of Methodists who saw “The Wayfarer” will not be inclined to attribute such a criticism to the spirit of tolerance which Rabbi Wise so zealously counsels the Christians to observe.

The Episcopal Church also has felt the attack of the Jews. Recently the Jewish press raised a clamor that the Episcopal Church was not competent to teach Americanism in our cities because it held that Christianity and good citizenship were synonymous. And when the Episcopal Church made provision for mission work among the Jews, the torrent of abuse that was poured out gave a very vivid picture of what the Jewish mind naturally turns to when aroused. This abuse is not reproduced here because of its excessive violence and disrespect. It is similar to that which is heaped upon all attempts to explain Christianity to the Jews. “What would the Gentiles do if we sent Jewish missionaries to them?” ask the violent editors. Any Gentile can answer that—nay, even the Jews can answer that. In the first place, the Jews do not want to teach their religion to Gentiles because there is a Talmudical restriction against it; Talmudically the Gentiles are not good enough to mingle with the religious matters of the Jews. In the second place, the Jews do send missionaries everywhere, not to spread Jewish religious principles, but propaganda favoring the Jews as a race and people, as is done in our colleges through the so-called “Jewish Chautauqua.” In the third place, let there be produced one Jewish missionary, who has ever received anything but considerate reception wherever he has appeared.

The Jews are bitter against all Christian denominations because of the conversion of numerous Jews to them. A large number of Jews have become Catholics; one of the Knights of Columbus’ most useful lecturers against the menace of radical socialism is a converted Jew.

It is so also with the Presbyterian Church which has been the most recent victim of Jewish vituperation. But only upon the Catholic Church has the Jew poured more wrath and malediction than he has poured upon Christian Science. The Christian Science church has attracted large numbers of Jewish converts. Some of them have become very active, devoted members of that form of faith. Scores of columns and pages have been devoted to their denunciation in Jewish newspapers, magazines and books. Christian Science is a peculiar anathema to the Jew.

Where then is the religious prejudice? Search through the publications of all the churches named, and you cannot find in all their history so much of the spirit of prejudice and persecution as you can find expressed in the Jewish press in one single day. Jewry reeks with such prejudice. In politics, education, social functions, public holidays, literature and newspapers, they see everywhere traces of “Christological manifestations” and cry them down.

No public man has ever given public evidence of his Christian faith without rebuke from the Jews. Mr. Bryan, Mr. Marshall, Mr. Taft, Mr. Wilson, two of them Presidents, one of them Vice President, and the other Secretary of State, have all been taken to task from time to time for their sins in this respect. Mr. Marshall is a devout man, whose faith is real to him, and he speaks very naturally about it at times. He has, therefore, been attacked oftener in the Jewish press than has any other public man of recent times. Nothing is more ludicrous to the Jewish press than a Vice President of the United States openly confessing that he is an “idolator,” that is, a worshipper of the dead Jewish imposter whom the Christians ignorantly call “Christ.” To Mr. Marshall’s honor, be it said, he never apologized, he never begged to withdraw his public statements. Neither did William J. Bryan, whose lecture “The Prince of Peace” contained statements in honor of Christ which brought him into conflict with Jewish spokesmen everywhere, and whose remarks about missions after a trip around the world were savagely attacked by Jews. Mr. Bryan did not apologize either. Mr. Taft was promptly called down on several occasions for using forms of the word “Christian,” which were particularly offensive to the Jewish press because they had advertised far and wide during the Taft campaign that Mr. Taft was practically a Jew in his belief in that he had abandoned all the distinctive Christian doctrines pertaining to Christ. After his lapses in which he used the term “Christian” approvingly, it was explained on his behalf (1) that he was accommodating himself to the audience, and (2) that he used the term as a synonym for civilization! But isn’t it significant that the name of Christ should be an integral part of the very name of the highest civilization? Mr. Taft was a true liberal, liberal enough to tolerate Christian orthodoxy. And that was a rather weak spot, as far as the Jews’ estimate of him went.

Mr. Wilson, while President, was very close to the Jews. His administration, as everyone knows, was predominantly Jewish. As a Presbyterian elder, Mr. Wilson had occasional lapses into the Christian mode of thought during his public utterances, and was always checked up tight by his Jewish censors. In 1914, speaking before the American University at Washington, he said:

“That is the reason why scholarship has usually been most fruitful when associated with religion, and scholarship has never been, so far as I can at this moment recall, associated with any religion except the religion of Jesus Christ.”

That was terrible. So terrible that Herman Bernstein was chosen to administer the castigation.

And Mr. Wilson made proper reparation:

“My dear Mr. Bernstein: I am sorry that there should have been any unfair implication in what I said at the opening of the American University. You may be sure that there was nothing of the kind in my mind, or very certainly nothing in my thoughts that would discriminate in the important matter you speak of against Judaism. I find that one of the risks and penalties of extemporaneous speaking is that you do not stop to consider the whole field, but address yourself merely to the matter in hand. With sincere respects and appreciation,

Cordially yours, Woodrow Wilson.”

The heading given this notice in the Jewish press was, “He Did Not Mean It.”

All of the President’s offending took place in 1914. The second offense he gave was by taking the position of honorary chairman of the International Lord’s Day Congress, which was to be held the next year in connection with the Panama Exposition. It was, however, the Christian Sunday which received the bulk of the abuse on that occasion.

The subject is “religious prejudice.” Where does it exist in this country in more continuous and virulent character than among the Jews? Read these items selected at random from Jewish papers:

“District Grand Lodge No. 4, Independent Order B’nai B’rith, voted at the annual election held in San Francisco, March 2 (1911) to exclude from the order Jews who join the Christian Science Church. The body after earnest discussion decided that the portals of the order shall be closed against the Christian Scientist Jews on the ground that such Jews have abjured Judaism. The vote upon the question was almost unanimous.”

“The Jewish Community of Philadelphia has found it necessary to publish a warning to the Jewish people against the Daily Vacation Bible Schools which are being established in various parts of the city, also against certain missions and settlement houses, all of which are traps into which Jewish children are decoyed for the purpose of seducing them from the religion of their parents. These institutions belong to that class of conversionist agencies which wage a campaign for the seeking of converts through workers . . . (who) are a class of criminals that keep just within the law and deserve no better treatment than is usually accorded to people of that kind.”

When a bishop of the Episcopal Church said, “We must make the United States indisputably a Christian nation,” the Jewish press retorted that such a thing could not be done until the Constitution of the United States had been “abolished.” “Christian America” is a persecuting term according to the professional Jewish spokesmen, and the most laborious efforts have been put forth by them to prove on paper that the United States is not and cannot be Christian.

Not only do the Jews disagree with Christian teaching—which is their perfect right, and no one dare question it—but they seek to interfere with it. It is not religious tolerance in the midst of religious difference, but religious attack that they preach and practice. The whole record of the Jewish opposition to Christmas, Easter and certain patriotic songs shows that.

When Cleveland and Lakewood arranged for a community Christmas, the Cleveland Jewish press said: “The writer of this has no idea how many Jews there are in Lakewood, but if there is only one, there should be no community Christmas, no community religion of any kind.” That is not a counsel of tolerance, it is a counsel of attack. The Christmas literature of American Judaism is fiercer than the flames of the Inquisition. In the month of January, the Jewish press has urged its readers to begin an early campaign against Christmas celebrations the next Christmas—“Only three hundred and sixty days before Christmas. So let us do our Christmas arguing early and take plenty of time to do it.”

If anything, Easter is attacked yet more bitterly. But we refrain, for good reasons, from repeating what Jews commonly say on such occasions. The strange inconsistency of it all is to see the great department stores of the Levys and the Isaacs and the Goldsteins and the Silvermans filled with brilliant Christmas cheer and at Easter with the goods appropriate to the time. The festivals of the “heathen” are very profitable. Jewish merchants have been chided for this—not over-severely—by certain rabbis. But on the whole the rabbis had better remain content, for there are no forces more rapidly secularizing the two festival days than are the merchandising and profiteering forces.

Even religious intolerance has its gleesome moments, and the Jews’ come whenever the signs appear of the greater secularization of the church. One parallel between the Protocols and the real hopes of the Jews is written in the common Jewish prophecy that Christianity is doomed to perish. It will perish by becoming, to all intents and purposes, Judaism. And it will become Judaism, first, by ousting all the doctrines pertaining to the person of Christ, excising from the Gospels the great “I Ams” which are His distinctive teachings concerning Himself; and, second, by devitalizing Christianity of all the spiritual content which flows from a union by faith with a Person believed to be divine. That is the only way it can be done. There may be a union of all the churches of the Christian faith because the fundamentals are the same; no union of Christianity and Judaism can occur unless Judaism takes in Jesus as the Messiah, or unless Christianity ejects Him as the Messiah. Judaism sees the union coming by the ejection of the Lord as the Messiah, and rejoices at every sign of it.

Dr. Charles F. Aked, who has since blossomed out as a Jewish spokesman, delivered a sermon in which he cast aside all the “supernatural” elements in the life of Christ, from His birth, to the significance of His death, and was hailed by the Jewish press as “the fulfillment of the prophecy that within fifty years the religion of all the American people, outside the Catholic Church, would be Judaism in principle even though not in name.”

“No Jew,” says the American Israelite, “will conceal his gratification when he finds Christians virtually admitting that liberal Christianity is practically an acceptance of the doctrine of liberal Judaism.”

Unfortunately, this is true. Liberal Christianity and Liberal Judaism meet, but only by the surrender of all that is distinctively Christian in doctrine. A liberal Christian is more Jewish than Christian. The statement may sound harsh and arouse resentment, but it is a very simple matter for any liberal Christian to convince himself of this by reading the volume of liberal Jewish doctrine put out by Kaufman Kohler, president of the Hebrew Union College. Liberalism is the funnel by which Christianity is expected to run into Judaism, just as liberalism so-called in other departments of life is expected to bring about certain other Jewish aims.

“Liberalism” in Jewish thought means a wide-open country in every way. Judaism has opposed every significant reform that has come to the country; prohibition, Sunday decency, movie and stage regeneration, and community reverence for sacred things. Judaism has been the prop of the liquor traffic, Sunday desecration, movie and stage excesses, and public contempt for the sacred things of the prevailing religion; and it is all too evident that the Jewish propaganda has made serious inroads everywhere.

A Congregational Church in New Jersey decided to abandon the Bible in some of its classes and substitute sociology, politics, municipal government and kindred subjects for study, and the Jewish press hailed it as another sign that the church was “in a fair way to adopt what is in substance American Judaism.” In St. Louis a clergyman, instead of preaching sermons, began to act out moralistic dramas which he himself had written, and the Jewish press again hailed it as a sign of the dissatisfaction of the Christian with his church. Everything done in every branch of the Christian church has been closely watched, and wherever a departure occurred from the distinctly Christian position it was extravagantly applauded; and wherever loyalty to the landmarks appeared, it was just as extravagantly condemned. Judaism does not wish the Christian church to remain Christian. This accounts for destructive Higher Criticism being almost exclusively the work of Jews, although the world has long known them under the guise of “German critics.”

Jewish intolerance today, yesterday and in every age of history where Jews were able to exert influence or power, is indisputable except among people who do not know the record. Jewish intolerance in the past is a matter of history; for the future it is a matter of Jewish prophecy. One of the strongest causes militating against the full Americanization of several millions of Jews in this country is their belief—instilled in them by their religious authorities—that they are “chosen,” that this land is theirs, that the inhabitants are idolators, that the day is coming when the Jews will be supreme. How can they otherwise act than in agreement with such declarations? You can see what is meant if you read Jewish articles describing the shoving aside of the New England people by the Jews; the supercilious attitude adopted toward the stock that made America is merely a fore-shadowing of what would be the complete attitude if power and influence made it possible. Bolshevism, which began with the destruction of the class that contained all the promise of a better Russia, is an exact parallel for the attitude that is adopted in this country regarding the original stock.

We are not permitted by the Jews to sing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” in our schools because one of the stanzas has a Christian flavor. The Jews claim that the presence of one Jewish child in any assembly of children ought in “fairness” to prevent the singing of that historic song.

Norman Hapgood, writing in a Jewish publication, said: “I need hardly explain that I do not think Jews ought to insist overmuch on their rights or nationality in a negative sense. They ought to be as much Jews as they can, but ought to be as little as possible of what is merely anti-Christian. For the Jews to try to get a song out of the public schools because it praises Jesus is perhaps natural but hardly wise.” Mr. Hapgood received a lot of abuse for his well-conceived counsel.

Again we come to the end of our space with the record hardly scratched. Sufficient has been presented to show the strong, unceasing anti-Christian activity of the Jews in the United States. Had the Jewish press been read extensively by non-Jews during the past 15 years, this present series of articles would have been unnecessary—the people would have known the

facts. It is to present some of the facts that are illustrated in the Jewish press along the line of religious intolerance that these two articles have been written.

Jewish spokesmen plead for suppression of facts in the name of “religious tolerance,” and they denounce exposure of facts as being “religious persecution.” Read the whole non-Jewish religious and secular publications and you will not find one one-hundred-thousandth part of the animosity against the Jewish religion which is found in the Jewish press—continuously found week after week for long years—against the Christian religion. The present writer has never seen nor heard of an article attacking the Jews’ religion.

So, once for all, in spiking the cry of “religious persecution,” we show that it exists in quantity and strength among the Jews—nowhere else. No one imbued with the American spirit would or could condemn, hinder, or even remonstrate with any person on account of the faith he holds.

As to “religious prejudice” or “persecution” entering into the present series of articles—there they are, reprinted in booklet form for permanent examination: where is the prejudice or persecution? Cite the page!

Jewish spokesmen would use their energy to better advantage, and more to the honor of the Jewish people, if they would address themselves to what is in the articles, rather than to what is not in them. The statements made by THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT have been voluminously discussed; but they are still awaiting an answer.

[THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT, issue of 11 June 1921]