
America and I, Short Stories by American Jewish Women Writers
Joyce Antler, Editor
A collection of twentieth-century stories by Jewish women, featuring some of the best short story writers in American fiction.
From Anzia Yezierska and Edna Ferber to Cynthia Ozick, Grace Paley, and Susan Fromberg Schaeffer, these writers reveal a rich, vital, and innovative tradition.
For more than a century, Jewish women have written about what it means to arrive, to belong, and to hold on to who you are while becoming something new. America and I gathers their short fiction into a single collection that spans generations, from the immigrant experience of the early twentieth century to the changing worlds of their daughters and granddaughters.
These stories look at the tension between old-world tradition and American ambition, the bonds and frictions between mothers and daughters, and the search for identity, independence, and community. Funny, sharp, and tender by turns, they offer an intimate portrait of American Jewish life through women's eyes.
Whether you're a longtime reader of Jewish literature, a student of women's history, or simply someone who loves a well-told story, this anthology is a rich and rewarding read.
About the Author
Joyce Antler is a historian of American Jewish women and the Samuel Lane Professor Emerita of American Jewish History and Culture and Women’s and Gender Studies at Brandeis University. Besides editing the anthology America and I: Short Stories by American Jewish Women Writers (1990), she wrote The Journey Home: How Jewish Women Shaped Modern America and You Never Call! You Never Write!: A History of the Jewish Mother, and edited Jewish Radical Feminism.