This book is in my top 5 five books. Its something I could really relate to. At the time I was 16 or 17,a very devoted Christian with a less than perfect parent and high dreams. It was really a growing experience. All the characters grow and its really interesting to see how they change with time and life experiences. Some are sad and other are good. I think everyone knows someone that can resembles each character. Now looking back its really cool to see who turned into what and how my views of each character has changed. Most notably I find myself being less judgmental.

I read this many years ago,but recall liking the book a lot.

This was written in 1925 so a reminder that feminism as analysis of the suppression of women (as distinct from the struggle for the vote) didn't just start in the 1960s and 1970s.

I found this on my bookshelf with no recollection of when or where I bought it and whether it was a recommendation or just something that caught my eye.

The first half of the story takes place when the main character, Sarah Smolinsky, is still a child or in her teens, and describes the control that her father had over her mother and sisters. As a Torah scholar, he expected to be supported instead of working for a living. Many of the decisions he made were bad ones and he never apologized.

The second half of the book is after Sarah leaves home. That was sketchier with more jumps and I didn't appreciate as much.

The novel BREAD GIVERS is narrated by Sara Smolinsky, a Jewish Immigrant in New York City. Her mother, father, and three sisters emigrated from Poland to the Lower East Side in the early 20th century. The book describes the family’s struggle with money, tradition, religion, in a foreign country.

I kept thinking about “The Fiddler on the Roof” while reading this book. I haven’t explored many stories of Ashkenazi Jews from before World War 2, so Fiddler is a touchstone for me. Like the musical, this book explores tradition and religion in a rapidly changing world. The father doesn’t work, doesn’t contribute to the house, claiming his devotion to God and his studies takes priority. The father stays home all day and prays while all his daughters work. He’s not funny or sweet or looking out for his daughters’ interests in any way. I despised the father in this book who prized education above all but would not support Sara’s pursuit of an education herself. He was a horrible father and person. He’s not a smart or savvy man either, making one foolish mistake after the other. It was devastating to see the effect he had on the mother and sisters. I was rooting for Sara throughout this story as she grows and finds her own place in the world. I found the book uplifting and an easy read. The prose was not sophisticated and the story is very plot driven, but the book was enjoyable and I’m glad I read this.▪️

I wasn't really looking forward to this book, just as I wasn't looking forward to reading other books in my Women's Lit class that turned out to be good.

If I must take a star away, it's because of the portrayal of men in the book. It's a feminist book, though you won't really appreciate it until you've made it 2/3 of the way through the book and realize that none of the men in the book thus far have been anything but jerks, swindlers, sexists, uber-religious conservatives and all around morons.

Characters: Typical for a big-family drama of this sort. There's Ms. Independent, Ms. "Burden-Bearer", Ms. I-care-about-nothing-but-my-looks, Ms. Gentle Spirit. The mother is overemotional. I think the father says her name once, because all the other times he calls her "woman." He says it so often that for most of the book, I wasn't even sure if the father was even sure what his wife's name was. He says "Woman!" when talking to her so often that it almost becomes a slur.

Speaking of which, the father is something ELSE. He's every negative stereotype for a religious conservative you can find. Stupid, grossly incompetent, emotionally abusive, and a massive hypocrite on almost all levels. But this is no hard-working rabbi, friends and neighbors. This is a "scholar", who laughs at the idea of doing any kind of work to support his family. No, the women have to work to support HIM, and give him the best food at dinner, all while hearing day in and day out about how women are below men and have NO lives save for serving men, and CAN'T EVEN GET INTO HEAVEN without men.

The father says money matters when he has it, and says that it doesn't when he loses it. He says poverty doesn't matter (on his end) but rages at the idea of his daughter's marrying poor boys that he can't fleece out of money, as he tries to do with Bessie's lover. I'm not going to lie: I hated this character.

Plot: The first half of the book we see the idiot father marry his daughters to men they hate. When they say so, he ignores them. When the suitors turn out to be morons, the father blames his daughters for not knowing, when HE was supposed to know. When the narrator and main protagonist, Sara, points this out, the father just tells her to shut up.

Other events of idiotic hilarity ensue. The father gets money and buys a store from a guy going back to his homeland. The store turns out to have no supplies or goods in it. The father COULD'VE avoided it by having his wife there, but decided not. When they DO get goods later on, the father argues with a customer who wants to buy bran cereal. "Bran? Bran is for animals! We have no such nonsense here!" The mother gets the bran, but it's too late, the guy has already left.
The drama is melodramatic and overdone, just the way I like it.

The second half of the plot finds Sara in college, having run away from the tyranny of her father. Most of the drama here is in carving out a half-decent living, while reconciling the decision with her family, and struggling to fit in at college. You can almost feel the breath of fresh air as the father's voice is removed from the chapters (though not forever of course).
Things get steadily better for Sara, but not so much for the family.

Climax: It's a life novel, so there's no earth-shattering climax. I understand why the ending was the way it was, but I don't agree with it. So the mother is dying. The father starts dressing up as she's dying, which she makes a note of.

He's doing this because he's planning on marrying someone else right after she's dead. She dies, and he does exactly that, which enrages his daughters (not that he cares). New Wife puts up with much less of his shit than the old wife. [Memory lapse here] She forces him to get a job, and he ends up selling stuff on the streets.

The protagonist, Sara, finds him (after finding a career and the perhaps only decent man in the entire novel). Of course he whines about how none of the daughters he screwed over are taking care of him, waiting on him hand and foot, while listening to him bitch about women being inferior to men. Sara and her husband choose to take him in, thinking that his religious "education" (he's no scholar by any stretch) will be useful for their kids or something like that.

But it won't, because he's an idiot and a tool. I would have liked it much better had he been left there on the streets, selling crap. It's been quite a few years since I've read this book, and I've softened on a lot of things...like getting revenge. But how did the father change over the years? If memory serves, he didn't. As far as he's concerned, he did absolutely nothing wrong. There's no value at all in attaching oneself to a person who constantly considers themselves perfect and blameless no matter what they do. Sara should have walked away. But whatever.

Prose: It's good. Immensely readable.

Overall? It's a good book, with some really irritating characters. It'll give you an authentic account of living in a tenant in New York City in the early twentieth century, dank and dirty.

Had to read this for school but was pleasantly surprised at this novel. About immigrant life in America back in 1890s, specifically around a jewish girl and her family in the lower east side.
Has heavy themes of female empowerment and how being a woman and being educated especially during this time is extremely important/ how it could be used as a way to open many doors for yourself.
Good read, recommend

If this book is supposed to in any way help us gain an appreciation for Orthodox Jewish rabi's then it missed the mark...I hate Reb Smolinsky as much as his daughters did. Ugh, what a horrible culture of ignorant, demeaning tradition that I am so thankful to have never been a part of. My vision of these type of men were based on the musical Fiddler on the Roof...this character is not at all as endearing as that father is. Knowing a little bit of the history behind the author and that this was basically a biography makes me sad and proud of her at the same time, but also makes the book better to me. If this was written today, by just some author from the mid-west it wouldn't be as good. It is clear that this was the life she lived, this was her culture. She did a great job of evolving the character from a young girl to a grown, educated adult with only giving 2 or 3 references to time passing. The conflict between wanting to be free from her father and yet at the same time feeling obligated to him was communicated very well. She hated her father and wanted to be as far away as possible and at the same time she loved him and was grateful for the strong will he imparted to her, and he was the same he loathed the back talk from her, but valued his influence he had on her...that is a hard dynamic to create with out sounding too wordy or psychological about things. I must say that I am glad, for many reasons, to have not lived on Hester street in the 1920's.

This was the best book I’ve ever read for school, ever. Maybe. But still, it was so good. I loved Sara’s voice and her exasperation and her eventual overcoming of all the struggles. This is exactly what I look for ahh it was so good!

This requires a PTSD CAUTION.
Beautifully written a century ago, it’s enthralling. Enriching.

To me, a stereotypical telling of a family who emigrated to the Lower East Side of NYC from Russia. Dad rules the house even though he doesn't work. His job is to study the Talmud. Even though he says he knows what is best for his four daughters, his wisdom doesn't appear to be as wise as it could be. I listened to this while reading it. I did enjoy it.

The ending of this book gave me a new perspective on my relationship with my own father. Poignant and thought provoking!

After reading "Call It Sleep," I kind of dreaded reading yet another difficult, dreary book about immigrants on the Lower East Side of New York in the early 1900s. Wow. Was I unbelievably surprised when I start "Bread Givers." I could not put this book down, even sneaking away from a family event to read a few more pages. What's so unbelievable to me is not only is the subject fascinating, but the books is immensely readable. It was like reading something written today.

Sara is the daughter of a terrible patriarch who wants to marry his daughters off the way he sees best, whether or not it is in their best interests. Sara rebels against this, and the insight to how life worked is eye-opening. Yezierska provides details I would never imagine--a young girl looking for coals among the ashes to burn for warmth; the necessity of marriage for a widow who needs someone to run his household; how finances worked for a family. What a full world Yezierska creates.

Knowing that my own family once upon a time passed through the Lower East Side definitely enhanced my feelings about this book, but even without that connection, the book is engaging as a novel and wonderfully appealing as a historical look at New York at the beginning of the 1900s. I cannot recommend this book strongly enough!