“All my life in Detroit I knew black aficionados of Jewish culture and vice versa—Pentecostal grandmothers who would only buy kosher meat, black teenagers who knew the right Yiddish word, countless Jews aspiring to soul music, and later, to nonwhite righteousness. Our neighborhood, a cauldron of instability, produced many a crossover confection.”
The novel focuses on the idea of heritage and what it means in a country where assimilation is prevalent. The memoir delves into the interconnected lives of minorities in the neighborhoods as they share the same experiences. Elizabeth observes the sense of community that develops among individuals who share a history of oppression because they understand each other’s struggles. Brought into the nation from circumstance and abandoning their culture with the mark of heritage only left in their ability to keep it alive. Thus, the assertion highlights the different ethnicities adopting their cultures in an effort of molding their own identities rather than assimilate to the foreign culture.
“We thought he was a madman telling an unbelievable tale. How could such a thing be happening in our world, our modern world?”
Miriam is a Polish Jewish woman and Holocaust survivor hence understands the significance of preserving Jewish traditions. She conveys to Elizabeth the attitudes during the Second World War and the acceleration of ethnic cleansing by the Nazis. Therefore highlights the stories of the Holocaust that were too atrocious for most people who had not witnessed it yet to believe. In the assertion, she affirms how it was too inhuman to fathom as it was an animosity yet seen in the modern world. Thus, stresses the idea of Holocaust denial could be rampant in the future because history has a way of doing that to inhumane acts.
“I watched and I learned. There is tumult, there is aggravation. There is love. For a mother, there is no such thing as excess.”
The story centers on Elizabeth getting back to her Jewish roots through culinary skills she learns from her mother-in-law. Moreover, through it, she adopts the religious practices and norms that she had also abandoned. As a mother, she feels she too has an obligation to maintain the Jewish traditions in the family. This awakening comes with exploring the history of her people and what it means to be Jewish. Through Miriam, she grasps the intensity of their history and richness of their culture. Thus, the lessons she finds relevance in everything that felt too far-off and not for her but now has a deeper understanding.
