A FEARLESS WOMAN

A Jewish woman chronicles growing up in early-20th-century New York.

In 1976, Ruth Rosen found a document that her mother, Ida, wrote for her before dying by suicide—it was an account of her life, which has been reproduced here in book form. After a short preface, the narrative moves chronologically through Ida’s life, beginning with her childhood in the 1910s. Ida’s earliest memories are of being visited by her father in the Brooklyn orphanage in which she and her older brother lived after their mother’s death until Ida was 8 years old. After she was brought back home, Ida learnedthat her family were Orthodox Jews, and that the woman she believed to be her mother was in fact the best friend of her biological mother, who died giving birth to Ida. Her father was abusive and controlling, causing her to leave home as a teenager. She got a job in the city and lived in a women’s home. The narrative compellingly depicts the lives of Jewish American women in the early 1900s; as a young woman working in the 1930s, Ida was regularly subjected to misogyny and antisemitism. This leads to some poignant considerations; Rosen ponders, “though we had freedom of religion, did we have to hide it, be ashamed of it, and be ostracized in this society?” As a whole, the narrative feels extremely personal, so much so that it can feel uncomfortable to read it; while Ruth calls the work her mother’s “memoir,” in the attached letter, Ida states, “I did not write my story as a thesis, or anything to be published.” In Ruth’s opening segment, which comes before her mother’s text, she acknowledges that it was written for her specifically: “This is the remarkable, unpredictable, exhilarating, and painful story of the life she wanted me to understand.” Ultimately, it feels intrusive to peruse what seems to have been intended as more of a suicide note than an autobiography.

A depressing personal narrative with some compelling historical insights.