Gitel’s Freedom, Iris Mitlin Lav, author
This novel is based on the real stories of families that have emigrated to the United States, especially in the early part of the 20th century, but this story is about a particular family from Minsk, Russia and what they endured in America. It concentrates on the lives of Gitel and Schmuel, who are observant Jews, although Schmuel is far mor religious, at first. I thought it would be very much like what my own father had endured as a little boy. During the same time frame and from the same place of origin, he traveled on a boat to America with his family to find a better way of life. However, my father’s family was not religious, and as the years passed, his family’s approach, philosophy and work ethic were different than that of Gitel and Schmuel’s. There were some common threads like the desire that we marry within the Jewish faith, the belief that education was the key to success, and the idea, held by most, that sons were entitled to far more opportunity than females who should really aim to marry and maintain a home, but socialism and communism were never even considered.
Because I also have the name Gitel, I was drawn to this book. However, that is pretty much where the connection ended. Gitel is closer in age to my father, and I am somewhat closer in age to Ilana and Faye, Gitel’s daughters. I understood their conflicts as they grew up. Still, I do not remember resenting my parents for not being rich enough to provide me with camp or a private college education, or everything else I might have desired. If I couldn’t afford something as simple as an ice cream, I simply did without it. The one thing I do remember resenting was the inequality between my brother’s life and mine, but I still loved my brother and respected my parents’ wishes for the most part. In this novel, the resentment of the characters felt outsized to me, especially in the face of the circumstances confronting the family.
In my home, it was stressed that success derived from hard work and education. If there was a roadblock, or a failure, you found a way around it. You solve your problems by working harder to achieve goals and not by complaining which served no purpose. It was a positive lesson that I did not get from this novel. Instead, I got a message that stressed resentment about never being afforded a fair chance. Bad luck, perhaps that they brought upon themselves, might be causing their problems. There was always something or someone to blame.
I was taught to never quit, never give up, and never to blame anyone else for my lack of good fortune or success. My family didn’t ever want to have to accept charity. We would have been too proud to accept government assistance. The immediate family often stepped in to help each other, making personal sacrifices to do so. Putting it simply, we were taught to appreciate what we had and to keep on working hard. We were neither Socialists nor Communists. We were in America, and we wanted to succeed in the Capitalist world. In this book, I found the opposite philosophy played a larger role. Of course, I did know others who came from a family that was more like Gitel and Schmuel's, who were interested in the Workman’s Circle, were far more devout, kept a kosher home, restricted the behavior of the children, provided only a religious education for them, and were interested far more in social programs for themselves, but most of the people I knew did not identify with the Socialist or Communist way of life, rather they wanted to assimilate. Most families were independent and lived within their means, no matter how meager their means were.
I was disappointed that the book seemed focused on this Jewish family’s dissatisfaction with their way of life, with their need to blame others or their reduced practice of religion as possible causes for their bad luck or lack of success. I was disappointed with the willingness to take from others even when it imposed great hardship on them. I was surprised that when this family managed to get help from social services and the government or other charities, instead of staying within their means until they could put aside a little something for a rainy day and then improve their lives, they simply seemed to spend the extra money immediately. Thus, they never managed to earn enough to get ahead of the game. When they faced misfortune, as we all invariably do, they simply had no nest egg and no way to deal with it. They never seemed to learn better coping skills and thus never seemed to change their situation. They just always wondered why they had bad luck. I do understand that their lives were difficult. I just wish the book had promoted a happier and more positive view of Jewish life, instead of promoting the idea of “woe is me!”
I did find the history presented in the novel very interesting, and I appreciated the explanation of the Yiddish words at the time they were used, preventing the need to turn to the glossary. I think because of the extremely simplistic writing style, however, perhaps the book would be better served if it was promoted for a younger audience. Even then, I think it also should be read with adult supervision, so a more positive view of Jewish life could also be explained to the reader. It would be good for a teacher or other mentor to explain the differences in lifestyle choices because after reading this, someone could come away with the wrong idea about Jewish life.
I would have preferred to have found some of the characters more likeable and the dialogue less contrived. The characters reacted to life’s events in the same way repetitively, never seeming to learn from the experience. For instance, Gitel always understood that her luck was bad. She always accepted it resignedly. She would simply sum everything up with the idea that there was never any other choice. Everyone would just have to deal with it. Then she would lean on others or her children for help. She would then feel sad because the children did not have a normal childhood. Then she rationalized that again with the idea that she had no other choice. When she would feel sorry for her children, she would also feel sorry for herself. Each time she was challenged, she didn’t seem to understand why she was being chosen to have so much bad luck. In some way, this story painted more of a negative than positive picture about Jews. They seemingly demanded benefits, but could not achieve independence if they maintained their religious beliefs. This disappointed me.
The idea that Gitel is finally free because her husband dies was shocking to me! She seemed almost grateful. I cannot imagine feeling the same way. Her children were married and out of the house, and now so was her husband. She was going to spread her wings and fly. She was never a homemaker. She never liked to cook or clean or take care of children, anyway. She had always resented not being able to do what she wanted to do. On the other hand, although I found her to be selfish at times, I understood that she was forced to sacrifice her desires for the needs of others very often. She apparently, had made her choices out of obligation and not out of love or devotion.
There was also an underlying suggestion that her feelings for her friend Sophie were questionable, perhaps indicating a lesbian tendency. I was not sure why that was included in the story in such a way. Sophie was her dearest and practically only friend, after all. That could have been the reason she felt so close and so comfortable with her.
Without the proper guidance, I fear that an ordinary reader, unfamiliar with Jewish life or Jews, might come away with a very negative opinion, and possibly even a dislike for Jews, because of the behavior and way of life expressed in this novel. That would be a disappointing result, and I feel certain it was not the author’s intent.