Elizabeth Stern was two and a half years old, when her family emigrated from Poland to Pittsburgh. My Mother and I is the story of Stern's Americanization and how it ultimately alienated her from her parents. Stern's father had been a small village rabbi. Strict and traditional in his views, he sends Elizabeth to learn Hebrew at age four, so she can fulfill her destiny "as the wife of a rabbi or scholar," but he opposes letting her attend high school. Stern's mother tries fitfully to pry open doors for her daughter. When Stern's father finds Elizabeth reading a secular book, and, in a fit of rage, flings the offending novel onto the top of a tall bookcase, her mother climbs on a ch...