Harry Bernstein

Den osynliga väggen är en underbart rik, gripande och myllrande barndomsskildring om en judisk familj i England vid tiden kring första världskriget. Författaren till boken var Harry Bernstein, som gjorde sin sensationella debut vid 96-års ålder. Bernstein levandegör en svunnen tid och miljö, han skriver med värme och utan sentimentalitet om svår fattigdom, inskränkt religiositet och kärlek.

Den judiske pojken Arry bor med sin familj på en lugn liten gata som knappt märks bland de större gatorna. Det som skiljer den från alla de andra är den är delad i två sidor av en osynlig vägg. På den ena sidan bor de kristna och på den andra sidan bor judarna. De är inte fientligt inställda till varandra, men det inträffar sällan att någon går över från den ena sidan till den andra.

Som på alla små gator skvallras det en hel del, och när rykten sprids om en kärleksaffär mellan en judisk flicka och en kristen pojke blir det stor uppståndelse. Den unga flickan skickas iväg till Australien. Inte minst Arrys mamma är förfärad. Hon kan då inte ana att historien kommer att upprepa sig på nära håll.

Harrys mor är annars mycket kärleksfull och är den som ser till att de fem barnen får mat, kläder, skolgång och all omsorg. Fadern arbetar i en klädfabrik och de pengar han tjänar där delar han ogärna med sig av. Han, som de alla är rädda för och aldrig vågar eller ens vill tilltala, håller sig utanför familjelivet. Så fort han kommer in i huset blir de tysta och på kvällen väntar de bara på att han ska ge sig av till puben för att dricka öl.

Harry Bernstein was born into a world of hardship and suffering in a northern mill town, in the shadow of the First World War.His brutish father spends what little he earns at the tailoring shop on drink, while his devoted mother survives on her dreams - that new shoes might secure Harry's admission to a fancy school, that her daughter might marry well, and that one day they might all escape this grinding poverty for the paradise of America.But as the years go by, life for the Bernsteins on their narrow cobbled street remains a daily struggle to make ends meet. For young Harry though, most distressing are his fears for his adored elder sister Lily, who is risking all by pursuing a forbidden love...

Harry Bernstein started chronicling his life at the age of ninety-four, after the death of his beloved wife, Ruby. In his first book, The Invisible Wall, he told a haunting story of forbidden love in World War I-era England. Then Bernstein wrote The Dream, the touching tale of his family’s immigrant experience in Depression-era Chicago and New York. Now Bernstein completes the saga with The Golden Willow, a heart-lifting memoir of his life with Ruby, a romance that lasted nearly seventy years.They met at a dance at New York’s legendary Webster Hall, fell instantly and madly in love, and embarked on a rich and rewarding life together. From their first tiny rented room on the Upper West Side to their years in Greenwich Village, immersed in the art scene, surrounded by dancers, musicians, and writers, to their life in the newly burgeoning suburbs, Harry and Ruby pursued the American dream with gusto, much as Harry’s late mother would have wanted.Together, through a depression, a world war, and the McCarthy era, through job losses and race riots and the joyous births of their two children, Harry and Ruby weathered much and shared an incredible love. But then the inevitable happened. One of them had to go first. When Ruby was ninety-one, she contracted leukemia and died. Alone for the first time in his life, Harry felt the loss acutely and terribly, and for a long while, despite continued good health, he was uncertain about whether he could go on without Ruby. It was then that he turned to the past for solace–and ended up fulfilling a lifelong dream of becoming a published author.Delightful and hopeful, tender and moving, The Golden Willow is Harry’s tribute to his beloved Ruby, to their long, happy life together, to the impact her parting had on his heart and his soul, and to the surprises and unexpected pleasures that continue to await him.

On a narrow cobbled street in a northern mill town young Harry Bernstein and his family face a daily struggle to make ends meet. This is the true story of those harsh years, overshadowed by the First World War. Amidst the hardship and suffering, Harry's devoted mother clings to a dream - that one day they might escape this grinding poverty for the paradise of America. But the regular pleas to relatives in Chicago yield nothing, until one day, when Harry is twelve years old, the family looks on astonished as he opens a letter which contains the longed-for steamship tickets. But the better life of which they'd dreamed proves elusive. Deprivation follows them to Chicago - and for Harry, life becomes more difficult still as he finds himself torn between his responsibilities to his mother, and his first love...

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.