Understanding Reb Smolinsky in Anzia Yezierska's Bread Givers
This essay analyzes the character of Reb Smolinsky in Anzia Yezierska's autobiographical novel Bread Givers, examining how his domineering behavior is rooted in Old World Jewish customs and Torah scholarship. The paper traces Yezierska's own immigrant experience as context for the novel, then explores how Reb's patriarchal authority, matchmaking schemes, and refusal to work reflect centuries of European Jewish tradition. It argues that while Reb's cruelty is real, fully understanding him requires understanding the cultural and religious framework that shaped him — a framework his daughter Sara ultimately rejects in order to build a new life for herself in America.
- Anzia Yezierska and the Autobiographical Context: Yezierska's immigrant life mirrors the novel's story
- Reb Smolinsky as Patriarch and Scholar: Reb's arrogance and Torah-centered self-importance
- Reb's Cruelty and Its Effect on the Daughters: Reb bullies daughters into submission and bad marriages
- Old World Customs in a New World Setting: European Jewish tradition explains but doesn't excuse Reb
- Matchmaking, Self-Delusion, and Cultural Entrenchment: Reb's matchmaking business masks his failures
- Conclusion: Culture, Character, and the Limits of Change: Reb's cultural rigidity defines his ultimate downfall
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper grounds character analysis in cultural and historical context, showing that Reb's behavior cannot be judged purely by modern standards without understanding Old World Jewish tradition.
- Textual evidence is used consistently, with direct quotations from the novel supporting each analytical claim about Reb's arrogance, tyranny, and self-delusion.
- The author establishes Yezierska's autobiographical connection to the novel early, which adds credibility and depth to the character analysis that follows.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates contextualized character analysis — rather than simply labeling Reb as a villain, the writer situates his behavior within a specific cultural and religious tradition, then argues that understanding him requires understanding that tradition. This two-level reading (psychological and cultural) is a useful model for literary analysis essays.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with biographical background on Yezierska, establishing the autobiographical stakes of the novel. It then moves through a character portrait of Reb, supported by quotations, before zooming out to consider how Old World Jewish customs explain — though do not excuse — his behavior. The essay closes by connecting Reb's inability to adapt to his ultimate failure as both a patriarch and an immigrant, contrasting him with Sara's capacity for change.
Anzia Yezierska and the Autobiographical Context
Although a work of fiction, Bread Givers is in truth based on the real life of its author, Anzia Yezierska, who, like Sara in the book, left home to acquire an education — something fairly unheard of for young Jewish women of her time. Anzia Yezierska came to America in 1890 when she was a young girl. Her family emigrated from Poland and settled in New York City in the Jewish section of the Lower East Side. Her story is in many ways a mirror image of the young Sara in Bread Givers, as Anzia left home when she was seventeen to continue her education, creating a great rift between herself and her father.
Yezierska began to write around 1915 and published several short stories and books. Her first book was even adapted into a Hollywood film. She gained fame and acceptance, but in the 1950s her writing fell out of style, and she never regained her earlier popularity. She died in 1970. Bread Givers was rediscovered by a professor and reprinted in 1999 as a classic text of life in the Jewish ghetto in New York.
Reb Smolinsky as Patriarch and Scholar
Bread Givers is a classic look into the everyday lives of Jewish immigrants who came to America in search of a better life. In a family of nine, all but the youngest — Sara — try to find work to support the household, yet many of the girls cannot find jobs. The domineering father, Reb, considers himself "above" work, for he is a scholar of the Jewish Bible, the Torah, and regards that study as his sole occupation. Not only is he selfish, he seems heartless and lazy as his character unfolds throughout the book. As Sara remembers, "Women had no brains for the study of God's Torah, but they could be the servants of men who studied the Torah" (Yezierska 9–10).
Perhaps what is most disturbing about Reb is his utter arrogance and unshakeable belief in his own importance. When the merchants on his block bail him out of jail, he is neither surprised nor grateful. Instead, he rants: "The whole world would be in thick darkness if not for men like me who give their lives to spread the light of the Holy Torah" (Yezierska 24). Reb is certain of his own significance and is not afraid to display that certainty to the rest of the household, no matter the circumstances.
Reb's Cruelty and Its Effect on the Daughters
Sara's father is nothing more than a mean-spirited bully who only looks out for himself. He drives away the man Bessie loves because of his own selfish greed, and he wears his daughters down by stripping away whatever self-reliance and self-esteem they possess. Sara observes of her sister Bessie: "I could see her sink into herself as if all the life went out of her heart and she didn't care about anything anymore" (Yezierska 51). Reb bullies all the girls into marrying men he selects for them — men who ultimately diminish the daughters just as he did.
Sara is the first to recognize his meanness and spite. She reflects, "More and more I began to see that Father, in his innocent craziness to hold up the Light of the Law to his children, was a tyrant more terrible than the Tsar from Russia" (Yezierska 65). Sara is stronger than her sisters because she identifies Reb's tyrannical ways and is the one who stands up to him in order to make something better of her life. She thinks to herself, "More and more I began to think inside myself, I don't want to sell herring for the rest of my days. I want to learn something. I want to do something" (Yezierska 66). Sara is the most resourceful member of the family: she plans her escape, carries it out, and standing up to her father's wrath was likely one of the most difficult things she would ever do.
Conclusion: Culture, Character, and the Limits of Change
In conclusion, understanding Reb and his actions is in part understanding his culture and beliefs, and in part understanding the pull of the old world on everything he does. He is a mean-spirited man who dominates the women in his life, but ultimately he is desperately trying to do what he believes is right — the only way he knows how: through dominance and selfishness. The tragedy of Reb Smolinsky, as Yezierska portrays it, is not simply that he is cruel, but that he is incapable of imagining any other way to be.
Works Cited
Kessler-Harris, Alice. "Introduction." Bread Givers. New York: Persea Books, 1999, pp. xvi–xxix.
Yezierska, Anzia. Bread Givers. New York: Persea Books, 1999.
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