Introduction Call It Sleep by Henry Roth is a novel, though it is also, to an extent, an autobiographical work of literature first published in 1934, during the Great Depression. The author exquisitely depicts the trials and tribulations of a poor Jewish immigrant family trying to adjust to life in a foreign country during an economically difficult period before World War I. With different degrees of success, the characters of the book deal with issues of love and hate, acceptance and rejection, freedom and suppression, truth and lies. Life of Jewish Immigrants in America The plot of the book starts in 1907, the time of mass migration to the US, then perceived by many immigrants as the Golden Land. This idealized view of America attracted hundreds of thousands of people into the country. In one popular song about immigration to America, Long Live the Land of the Free , the U.S. is described as “sweet heaven of freedom of u.s. the oppressed” (Rumshinsky and Small). Indeed, people overcame great hurdles and traveled to the U.S. with hopes of opportunity and freedom – virtues that were unavailable to them in their countries of origin. Such positive sentiments were expressed in many pieces of art, but immigrants retained their cultural roots by singing about America in Yiddish, as the narrative of the “Long Live” shows. Although many immigrants viewed the U.S. as the “land of the free,” many of them were soon disillusioned with the challenging reality of being a stranger in society. Albert Schearl, a Jew who has come to the U.S. from Europe in search of a better life, is a representative of this trend. He came to America hopeful for change, but his dream has hardly come true as Albert keeps changing jobs, mostly due to being bad-natured and violent. However, poor working conditions and living environments endangered Jewish people of different personalities. Anti-immigration sentiments affected people’s view of the arriving workers, while Jewish people, eager to join the workforce, accepted dangerous and low-paid jobs to assimilate. In some cases, the neglect of American businessmen to the conditions of immigrant workers led to horrible tragedies. The fire at the Triangle West Company took the lives of more than 100 immigrant women, which later spurred a fight for human and worker rights (“From Haven to Home”). While the industrial side of the Jewish immigrant’s life is not as present in the novel, the tensions between Jewish people and assimilated Americans are evident. First-generation immigrants dreamed of a better fate for their children, which is vividly depicted in Avalon , the film directed by Levinson. It is devoted to the same topic as Roth’s book – the life of an extended Jewish family, the Krichinskies, who immigrated to America at the beginning of the twentieth century. Before coming to the US, the five Krichinsky brothers were violinists by trade but had to work as wall hangers to earn a living in America. Neither of them wanted his children to do such a job. The brothers and their children pursued the American dream and achieved it, but at the cost of breaking family ties. Unlike the Schearls who were in America all by themselves, the Krichinskies were an extended close-knit family with scores of siblings, aunts, uncles, and in-laws t