Bread Givers

by Anzia Yezierska

The prayers of his daughters didn’t count because God didn’t listen to women.

“You’re so busy working for Heaven that I have to suffer here such bitter hell.”

‘I’ll be happy and thankful to live in poverty, as long as I know that our reward will be complete in Heaven.’”

I’m willing to give up all my earthly needs for the wine of Heaven with you.

It seemed to me that something deep down in her had broken and it would never again be fixed.

“It says in the Torah that when you see a meshumid drowning you must sink him deeper into the water. And if you see him burning, you must add yet fuel to the flames.”

like dutiful children who honour and obey and respect their father, whether they like him or not.

And then Father told us a Greek fairy tale he once read! The king of the gods wanted to divide up everything among those under him. To one he gave the sea, to another the stars, to another the earth, the sun, and so on. After everything was divided up, the poet woke from his dreams and asked for his part. “Where were you all this time, while everybody was fighting for his share of the world?” “I was in the heaven of my dreams,” answered the poet. “Nu,” said the god. “If you can live in dreams, then you don’t need the things of this world. Go back to your dreams.”

Should I let him crush me as he crushed them? No. This is America, where children are people.

It says in the Torah, only through a man has a woman an existence. Only through a man can a woman enter Heaven.”

In America, women don’t need men to boss them.”

“Where do you find a poor father who has done for his children as much as I? I didn’t cripple you. I didn’t give you consumption. I didn’t send you to work at the age of six like some poor fathers do. You didn’t start work till you were over ten. Now, when I begin to have a little use from you, you want to run away and live for yourself?”

I want to be looked at, longed for, followed…. I hate my goodness. The only sin on earth is to let life pass you by….

I turned to my work, raw with the shame that I had tried to be like the rest and couldn’t I threw myself more desperately than ever into my studies.

My one hope was to get to the educated world, where only the thoughts you give out count, and not how you look.

I saw there was no use talking. He could never understand. He was the Old World. I was the New.

“Schlang! Toad! Wild animal! Thing of evil! How came you ever to be my child? I disown you. I curse you. May your name and your memory be blotted out of this earth.”

I pressed my face against the earth. All that was left of me reached out in prayer. God! I’ve gone so far, help me to go on. God! I don’t know how, but I must go on.

But you, child—your place is with the pioneers. And you’re going to survive.”

Love ached in me more than if I had been with them all the time. It was like a secret wound that I had kept covered for six years. And now that I bared it, it hurt.

‘A woman without a man is less than nothing. A woman without a man can never enter Heaven.’”

But 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.