Bread Givers

It is Manhattan in the 1920s, and the Polish American Smolinsky family struggles to survive in their home on Hester Street. At ten years old, Sara, the youngest daughter, is keenly aware of the family’s unstable financial situation. With food scarce, her unemployed and domineering father, a rabbi who spends his days studying, depends on the wages of his daughters. After years of watching him destroy the hopes and dreams of her three older sisters, Sara runs away, but forging a life for herself is not easy. She faces obstacles due to her background and gender while working long days in the laundry and studying to become a teacher at night. Constantly rising above her circumstances—and her father’s grasping reach—Sara finally finds happiness and love.

"There is justice nowhere for a fool. A fool they whip even in the Holy Temple."
— Anzia Yezierska (Bread Givers)

Anzia Yezierska was a Jewish-American novelist born in Mały Płock, Poland, which was then part of the Russian Empire. She emigrated as a child with her parents to the United States and lived in the immigrant neighborhood of the Lower East Side of Manhattan.