This group of random excerpts and brief articles about Jewish childhood does not have the coherence of the editor's Growing Up Black (1968) because the pieces vary widely in intent, reference and relevance. The first section, ""The Old World,"" encompasses the dutiful autobiographical recall of Weizmann, the diary of Anne Frank, the art of I. B. Singer. Section II, ""The New World,"" includes, among others, memoirs of early America and some sugared extracts from Golden-Levenson-Gertrude Berg-Allan Sherman. Two Israeli pieces are outstanding: a touching narrative by a Yemenite emigre, and an accomplished monograph by novelist Yael Dayan about her father. (""He holds the key to his own jail, and he controls the traffic into and out of it, of people, objects, interests."") Some moments of excellence, some illuminations, but this is mainly an assortment for bed table noshing.