My Mother and I
Author: first_name: Elizabeth Gertrude
last_name: Stern
Language: English
Year: 1917

Elizabeth Stern was two and a half years old, when her family emigrated from Poland to Pittsburgh. <i>My Mother and I</i> is the story of Stern's Americanization and how it ultimately alienated her from her parents. Stern's father had been a small village rabbi. Strict and traditional in his views, he sends Elizabeth to learn Hebrew at age four, so she can fulfill her destiny "as the wife of a rabbi or scholar," but he opposes letting her attend high school. Stern's mother tries fitfully to pry