Customer Reviews

The Journey Home: How Jewish Women Shaped Modern America

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This book is a wealth of information for ANYONE who enjoys women's history, as well as labor, entertainment and political history. The author of the book, Joyce Antler, has done a phenomenal amount of research to bring all these women to life. The only criticism I have is that the title might put off some readers, thinking that religion is the main theme. In fact, although religion plays an important role in all these women's lives, thier personal histories are fascinating regardless of their religious background. This book made me want to get full biographies of all the women mentioned in the book!

This book reads in a very interesting way. The idea of telling the history of American Jewish women by writing a series of biographical sketches works very well. For me a great part of the pleasure of the work was in reading the stories of people like Emma Lazarus, and Mary Antin whose work I had known in some way but did not know the real stories of. One strong element in this work is the relating of the hardships many strong creative Jewish- American women suffered as women. The work tells exemplary tales about pioneering women who opened up new areas for women, while suffering because of this in their own personal lives. One is given in this work a sense of how truly remarkable many of these women were.
I enjoyed reading the book and recommend it highly.