The Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers-Fast Shipping

Description

This wonderfully charming memoir, written when the author was 93, vibrantly brings to life an all-but-forgotten time and place. It is a moving tale of working-class life, and of the boundaries that can be overcome by love.

“There are places that I have never forgotten. A little cobbled street in a smokymill town in the North of England has haunted me for the greater part of my was inevitable that I should write about it and the people who lived on both sidesof its ‘Invisible Wall.’ ”

The narrow street where Harry Bernstein grew up, in asmall English mill town, was seemingly unremarkable. It was identical to countlessother streets in countless other working-class neighborhoods of the early 1900s,except for the “invisible wall” that ran down its center, dividing Jewish familieson one side from Christian families on the other. Only a few feet of cobblestonesseparated Jews from Gentiles, but socially, it they were miles apart.

On the eveof World War I, Harry’s family struggles to make ends meet. His father earns littlemoney at the Jewish tailoring shop and brings home even less, preferring to spendhis wages drinking and gambling. Harry’s mother, devoted to her children and fiercelyresilient, survives on her dreams: new shoes that might secure Harry’s admissionto a fancy school; that her daughter might marry the local rabbi; that the entirefamily might one day be whisked off to the paradise of America.

Then Harry’s oldersister, Lily, does the unthinkable: She falls in love with Arthur, a Christian boyfrom across the street.

When Harry unwittingly discovers their secret affair, hemust choose between the morals he’s been taught all his life, his loyalty to hisselfless mother, and what he knows to be true in his own heart.