My Yiddishe Childhood: Stories of 1930s Chicago by Annette Baran (edited by Naomi Baran) is a heartwarming memoir of growing up in Chicago in the 1930s, a child of eastern European Jewish immigrants who were passionately dedicated to the socialist cause.
Annette Baran's capacity for vivid imagery and humorous detail draws you in and provides an intimate experience of a world uniquely shaped by Yiddish culture. Annette wrote these eleven tales of her childhood in the 1980s which were only recently discovered. Her daughter Naomi Baran gathered and edited this collection of previously unpublished stories and brought them to life with Yiddish folk songs, family recipes, and historic photos of her family and the Jewish neighborhoods of Chicago. My Yiddishe Childhood is a tribute to a bygone culture, and a daughter's loving tribute to her mother. Taken altogether, these stories are about impassioned idealism, culture, politics, community, family, and an enduring friendship.
