The Invisible Wall

Starred review from December 11, 2006
Bernstein writes, "There are few rules or unwritten laws that are not
\t\t broken when circumstances demand, and few distances that are too great to be
\t\t traveled," about the figurative divide ("geographically... only a few yards,
\t\t socially... miles and miles") keeping Jews and Christians apart in the poor
\t\t Lancashire mill town in England where he was raised. In his affecting debut
\t\t memoir, the nonagenarian gives voice to a childhood version of himself who
\t\t witnesses his older sister's love for a Christian boy break down the invisible
\t\t wall that kept Jewish families from Christians across the street. With little
\t\t self-conscious authorial intervention, young Harry serves as a wide-eyed guide
\t\t to a world since dismantled—where "snot rags" are handkerchiefs, children
\t\t enter the workforce at 12 and religion bifurcates everything, including
\t\t industry. True to a child's experience, it is the details of domestic life that
\t\t illuminate the tale—the tenderness of a mother's sacrifice, the nearly
\t\t Dickensian angst of a drunken father, the violence of schoolyard anti-Semitism,
\t\t the "strange odors" of "forbidden foods" in neighbor's homes. Yet when major
\t\t world events touch the poverty-stricken block (the Russian revolution claims
\t\t the rabbi's son, neighbors leave for WWI), the individual coming-of-age is
\t\t intensified without being trivialized, and the conversational account takes on
\t\t the heft of a historical novel with stirring success.

June 1, 2007
Adult/High School -When Bernstein, who is in his 90s, was a boy, his older sister, Lily, was in love with Arthur. This would not have been a problem except that Arthur was Christian and Lily was Jewish, and in their pre-Great War mill town in northern England, an invisible wall ran down their street, separating them. Neighbors rarely crossed those few cobblestoned feet. In winter, the Jews built a snow slide on their side and the Christians built one on theirs. There was not much other frivolity in those hard times. Home was not a happy place for Harry, his mother, and his five brothers and sisters when his mean, alcoholic father was there. When 12-year-old Lily won a scholarship to grammar school, her father dragged her by the hair to work with him. Harry's mother started a shop in her front room to make ends meet, selling slightly damaged fruit and providing a place for socializing and gossip. She always hoped for better, having Harry write letters to their relatives in America, beseeching them on a regular basis to send passage for her family, and then, finally, only for Lily when the lovers were discovered. Barriers were finally broken as Lily refused to give up either Arthur or her mother. Readers will be taken with this memoir, reminiscent of Frank McCourt'sAngela's Ashes (Scribner, 1996). It will grab them from the start, drawing them into an intimate relationship with Harry, Lily, their mother, and the various neighbors who lived on their street.Ellen Bell, Amador Valley High School, Pleasanton, CA

Copyright 2007 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2007
At age 93, first-time author Bernstein has crafted a gripping coming-of-age memoir of his childhood in a poverty-stricken and religiously divided mill town in northern England before and during World War I. Home to both Christian and Jewish families, the street where Bernstein grew up was defined by the strict social and vocational segregation of the two religious groups. Bernstein deftly narrates the tale of his sister's forbidden love for a Christian boy from the other side of the street. From the perspective of his boyhood self, Bernstein offers a glimpse into a family riven by poverty, sibling jealousies, and an abusive, alcoholic father yet held together tenaciously by a caring mother. Bernstein's graceful, unsentimental writing depicts fleeting moments of humanity and gentleness in a brutal world. In the tradition of Frank McCourt'sAngela's Ashes or Anzia Yezierska'sBread Givers, this harsh yet inspiring memoir will appeal to readers seeking evidence of the power of the human spirit to overcome prejudice and hardship. Recommended for all public libraries.Ingrid Levin, Salve Regina Univ. Lib., Newport, RI

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 1, 2006
The writer is 95. This memoir is his first book. And it is a groundbreaking story of family secrets and forbidden love told in plain, beautiful prose through the eyes of a young Jewish boy, Harry, growing up in an English working-class neighborhood near Manchester on the eve of World War I. On one side of the street are the Jews; on the other side are the Christians. There is no violent hostility like the pogroms that drove Harry's parents from Eastern Europe, but an invisible wall keeps the two sides totally separate. "The one thing the two sides have in common is poverty." And prejudice. Then Harry's gifted older sister, Lily, falls in love with brilliant Arthur from the other side. They meet in secret, trusting Harry not to tell. When they are found out, the distraught family tries to send Lily to America: "A child who marries a non-Jew is dead." Far from rambling oral history, the chapters are tense with danger and with tenderness, especially Harry's family life: his brutal, distant father ("I never talked to him, nor he to me"); his loving mother; and Lily, who wins a scholarship and the chance to become a teacher until her father drags her to the tailor shop by her hair. Meanwhile, in the larger world, the question lingers, Will the war in Europe really end all wars? A great book for discussion groups--and not just for Jews.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)