Bread Givers is a 1925 novel by Anzia Yezierska. As a Jewish-American who emigrated to America from Poland, Yezierska uses her life experience growing up in New York as a basis for the novel. The novel follows Sara Smolinsky, a Jewish-American girl, as she grows up in New York in the 1920s with her sisters. Sara pushes the bounds of her father Reb Smolinsky’s patriarchal belief system as she pursues an education and career. The novel explores Traditional Values Versus Modern Aspirations, The Threat of Patriarchal Control, and The Complexities of Assimilation and Identity.

This study guide refers to the 2003 Persea print edition.

Content Warning: This source material contains themes of patriarchal control and misogynistic treatment of women. This source material also contains derogatory language towards people with disabilities and mental illnesses.

Plot Summary

Sara Smolinsky is a 10-year-old Jewish American girl who lives in New York with her family. Sara’s mother, Shenah, and her sisters, Bessie, Fania, and Mashah, struggle to find work to pay for rent. Sara’s father, Reb Smolinsky, studies the Torah instead of working because he believes that women should serve men. A few years later, Reb Smolinsky forbids each daughter from seeing their suitors because he does not approve of them. Instead, Reb Smolinsky decides to find husbands for his daughters himself. Sara’s sisters are so exhausted from living in Reb Smolinsky’s patriarchal household that they agree to the matches to escape him. Reb Smolinsky believes that his daughters’ marriages will make him rich. However, after her marriage, Mashah tells them that her husband, Moe, lied about his finances, and he can hardly feed her. Fania also writes to her family, telling them that her husband, Abe, is a gambler, and she wants to come home. Despite Reb Smolinsky’s arrangement of the matches, he blames his daughters for their poor judgment.

Zalmon the fish-peddler pays Reb Smolinsky five hundred dollars to marry Bessie. Reb Smolinsky decides to use the money to buy a store. He finds a grocery store for sale in New Jersey. Reb Smolinsky promises Shenah that he will not buy the store without her. Later, Shenah and Sara go to visit the grocery store. After the store closes, Shenah asks if she can examine the products before they buy the store, but the owner tells her that Reb Smolinsky already bought it. The owner leaves, and the Smolinskys discover that most of the boxes in the store are empty. The Smolinskys move into the back of the store, and over the next few months, Shenah and Sara struggle to make a profit. One night, Reb Smolinsky and Sara argue, and Sara decides to return to New York to live with her sisters.

When Sara arrives in New York, she rents a room and decides to go to night school so she can become a schoolteacher. Shenah visits and asks her to come see her more often, but Sara tells her she must focus on her studies. Sara meets Max Goldstein, who takes her out. After a few weeks, Max proposes to Sara, but she turns him down because he does not want her to pursue an education. Reb Smolinsky comes to her apartment and yells at her for refusing Max’s proposal. He tells her that women are not meant to study because they are not smart enough to learn. Sara tries to get her father to see her point of view, but he disowns her and leaves.

Sara attends college in a small town several years later. Although she loves her education, she has trouble fitting in with her classmates. At the end of her senior year, Sara enters a writing competition, and she wins the thousand-dollar prize. When Sara returns to New York, she rents a nice apartment and starts working at a nearby school. She goes to visit her family after six years of being away and finds that Shenah is sick. Sara feels guilty that she never came to visit. Shenah makes Sara promise that she will take care of Reb Smolinsky. After a week, Shenah dies. When the period of mourning has passed, Reb Smolinsky marries a woman named Mrs. Feinstein.

Sara begins a relationship with the principal of the school she works at, Hugo Seelig. Several months later, Sara bumps into a peddler on the street and realizes it is Reb Smolinsky. He tells her that Mrs. Feinstein told him he had to work, even though he is too old. Sara takes her father home and pays Mrs. Feinstein to take care of him. A few weeks later, Reb Smolinsky tells Sara that he cannot live with Mrs. Feinstein. Sara asks him to come live with her and Hugo. Reb Smolinsky agrees on the condition that they respect his Jewish traditions. Sara wonders if the weight of patriarchal control will follow her for the rest of her life.