America and I: Short Stories by American Jewish Women Writers

By Antler, Joyce (Ed.)
Beacon Press, 1991, Paperback, ISBN: 0807036072, $23.00

This anthology of American Jewish women's experiences from 1900 to the present features for the first time the short stories of four generations of American Jewish women.

The immigrant experience, which included poverty, anti-Semitism, assimilation, Jewish self-hatred, and intermarriage, are topics of many of the early stories, such as Edna Ferber's "The Girl Who Went Right" and Fannie Hurst's "Seven Candles."

Other stories portray the search for the meaning of one's Jewish heritage, caring for children, and the effort of Jewish women to find their way in America and to make America their own - as in the title story by Anzia Yezierska. Issues such as the Holocaust are depicted in Cynthia Ozick's "The Shawl" and Rebecca Goldstein's "The Legacy of Raizel Kadish."

The 23 stories in this collection reveal the full sweep of American-Jewish experiences in this century. Antler's erudite introduction is most valuable.