Zalzah

    I think out of all the stories I read in the book so far, I like this one the most. It talks about a young Jewish girl working her butt off so she can survive. When her aunt in America tells her mom about her son needs a wife, Zelzah’s mother tells her sister that Zelzah would make a good wife. So Zelzah goes to America to Vermont.  The family treats her well. She gets to know Jake (soon to be husband) more until one brother’s girlfriend took him away and gets secretly married and pregnant. The aunt was ashamed and asked Zalzah what she would like to do. Zalzah then went back to New York City to a family’s home to work for a while. Then she found a job in a factory. She started receiving her education. She wanted her sister Shulamith to join her so she started sending money for her to come. After a few years she finally came. She joined with Zalzah to work in a factory. After a while she met a man and married him. They have six children together. Zalzah went to college and got her bachelor degree. She became a third grade teacher. She rented a nice house of her own.

    Towards the end of the story, on page 198 she says that she work up one morning and thought how strange life was. She thought of her life back home and her new life here in America. I think she said life was strange because just years ago she was at home working to survive. Then she moved to America and she has a good life now. She worked hard to get where she was now, education and all. She received news from home that her sisters were getting married too. I think she felt relieved that her sisters were being taken care of. I don’t think she ever thought about getting married, just focused on herself first. This story makes me feel inspired because she moved to America to marry but ended up not getting married but making a better life here. I felt bad for her in beginning because she had a big family and shared a bed with her sisters. She had to walk three miles to work on a farm.  At the end of the story she asks what is happiness? I think the answer to that question would be doing things for yourself and others to be better, around things you love.