The Errand Runner: Reflections of a Rabbi's Daughter by Leah Rosenberg (1981, Book, Illustrated)

THE ERRAND RUNNER: Reflections of a Rabbi's Daughter is the memoir of a Jewish immigrant who attempts to integrate her Chassidic heritage with her North American environment-the struggle between the rabbi's obedient daughter and the lively, intelligent woman. It is a story which combines universal experiences with an under- standing of Chassidic customs and ways of life. With great tenderness and poignancy, Leah Rosenberg describes growing up in a rabbinical household where life is almost a step back to another time, another place. Always, Leah was the translator, the messenger, the errand runner for her beloved father who guided, sheltered and often limited her world. She writes of her futile strivings for a higher education forbidden to Orthodox Jewish girls of the time, of her arranged marriage which inevitably ended in despair and her struggles to make a livelihood for herself and her two young sons, one of which became the well known writer Mordechai Richler. The experiences of Leah's family are typical of those of Jewish newcomers to Canada. Mrs. Rosenberg's observations and perceptive descriptions of Jewish life, not only in Montreal but also in Toronto, New York, and pre-World War II Poland add many dimensions to an understanding of the North American immigrant experience. Her family's connections with rabbinical circles, the Yiddish theatre and the Communist movement in Russia make for interesting as well as informative reading. Throughout her story, Leah emerges as a woman of wit, fortitude and determination. After the death of her parents and the breakdown of her marriage, she surfaces from her sheltered world and explores the richness of life as only a person of great depth and enthusiasm can. The author of THE ERRAND RUNNER is a remarkable woman of exceptional talents who has produced a very perceptive, humane account of a person caught between the secure traditions of the past and the more practical compromises of the present.
I should also add that Leah got her fathers genes for the use of her pen. Her father "Chief" rabbi of canada was a famous author in Europe who was famous for penning the stories of the Golem of Prague as fact and not fiction. His daughter relates how she helped translate the works of Arthur canon Doyle into Yiddish for her father and then he used the plots in his book on the Golem. I liked the book as I was a fan of her father through his works.