The Red Heifer

by Leo Haber

Swirling in the melting pot of Manhattan's Lower East Side, the eldest son of religious, Yiddish-speaking parents narrates The Red Heifer from the 1930s, when he is five, through the early 1950s. American-born, he grows to sexual and social awareness amid old-world rabbis, new-world mobsters, Jewish atheists, musicians, and new waves of immigrants. The growing boy struggles with love and death amid poverty, crime, and fervent religion and politics. He passionately evokes the largely vanished working-class Jewish Lower East Side as an unromantic, sometimes violent place, in which characters strive to observe pious duties, make money, and assimilate. Steeped in Jewish-American history, Jewish lore, and Yiddishkeit, Leo Haber tells the stories of people who love learning, family, righteousness—and the pleasures of the flesh. The Red Heifer teams with unforgettable characters like the narrator's idol, hoodlum Feigy Grossman; his father, Reb Yussel, a Talmudic scholar; Aunt Geety, Uncle Oosher; and a street person who claims to be the Messiah. Each grapples, memorably, with traditional values and the cultural enticements of their new goldene medina (golden land). Just as Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes spoke to readers of diverse ethnic backgrounds, The Red Heifer speaks to The Holocaust, taking place from the pogroms.

289 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2001

Reviews

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished this book and nearly cried at the end of it. Haber has written a masterpiece and does an outstanding job of letting see the world through the main character's eyes. A coming of age tale, set it NYC during the 1930s-1950s, this book does a terrific job of mixing humor and drama, along with giving readers an in-depth feel for an ancient Jewish culture struggling to adapt to a changing world and to life in America.