Essay/Term paper: Bread givers

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Cliff Notes

Bread Givers:  Bread Givers shows the life of a Jewish family in
modernizing America during

the early 1900's, but it focuses in on a young girl who's father is a Rabbi
that does

nothing but teach the Holy Torah all day and does no work to earn money.

Bread Givers shows the life of a Jewish family in modernizing America during

the early 1900's, but it focuses in on a young girl who's father is a Rabbi
that does

nothing but teach the Holy Torah all day and does no work to earn money.
During

this time period it was hard on almost all Jewish families and this family
was seeing

this now, the inability of getting a decent job, and most of all, the need to
find a

suitable husband.

All of the family works hard except for the father, he is always out
preaching the

Torah while his daughters earn the only income the family gets. He was a
'religious

freak' that did nothing else to help his family through their hardships. And
the thing

that bothered me, the reader, the most was the fact that the daughters had to
do all

the work for the family and their father still had total control over them in
just about

every aspect if not all. The biggest part was controlling who they marry to.

The first showing of this power was apparant when his oldest daughter,
Bessie,

brought home a nice young man that she liked a great deal and vice-versa. But
the

young man was not in the upper-class that the father wanted and though that
he would

be a burden so he drove his daughter's love away over money.

The youngest dauaghter though figured that she would not be controlled by her

father and decided to run away with only a few dollars and start a somewhat
new life.

After finding a small room that she could live in, she got a very tough job

considering the pay was so little. But with this little pay she was able to
survive and

keep the rent going long enough to get into school. After long, brutal,
endless days

and nights of studying she finally got into a college in the suburbs of New
York but

she didn't fit in with anyone.

After finally getting out of college she got a job at a small elementary
school and

made good money especially compared to what he had made in her previous jobs.

But she soon recieved word that her mother was dying and this meant that
there

would be no one to take care of her father. But unbeknownced to her, father
had

already been looking around the neighborhood and had already found a widow
that

would take care of him. But this new wife wanted money and a very good life
so the

father had to go and work.

Even after all of the hardships placed on the three daughters by their father
they

felt the need to support him so they sent money to him and ended his need to
work.

This just shows the true love that the daughters had towards their father.

I feel that Bread Givers is a very good book. At first I did not want to read
it

because it was another U.S. History, "you have to read it," book.
But after i read the

First Chapter I couldn't put the book down.

It is an excellent book and I feel that it should be required reading for any
high

schooler going through U.S. History. It, in very good detail, portrays life
of an

immigrant during these early times in our growing American nation. I learned
a

great deal of what they had to go through especially after asking my
grandmother if

she had to go through any of this when she moved here. Midway through the
book I

called her and found that this life was no different for Polish immigrants
and that it

was a very hard life indeed, that I am glad I did not have to go through. I
also feel

very sorry for anyone that had to go through this because of all the
hardships

involved. All of this was inspired by me reading this one book. And I feel
that just

about any literate person would enjoy this book immensly.