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4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
 Many details/scenarios completely inaccurate Dec 03, 2008
By J. Kelley
"dahozho"
I chose this book thinking it was more along the lines of a fictionalized account of the author's family story (Such as the interesting work "My Father's Paradise"). It isn't. It isn't even "meticulously researched." If it was researched, the results were either ignored or the scope wasn't there to begin with. Ok, perhaps I misunderstood "family saga" as in "fictional family saga." My bad.
(The author cites the "Bentl Briefs" from the Yiddish-language US paper, The Forward as a source for his research. As this paper is ardently and openly anti-tradition/religion (among other things), I don't find this balanced or exhaustive. So now I understand how so little accuracy about turn of the century Jewish life exists in this book.)
This is a 'romance' novel, with a BIG pro-union stick beating you about the head and shoulders more often than I find absolutely necessary.
The author ignores how a married woman from a Polish shtetl would act, and despite protestations of "rich historical detail" refuses to acknowledge this gap in matters of halacha. Despite his eagerness to have his characters secularize, a married woman from that place & era would not have her hair loose or uncovered. A married woman from that place and era would not be alone in a room with another man, let alone engage in physical relations (the mere idea of the talk and shaming from the community would ensure that, and there would be that on the ship). There were incidents on those immigrant ships-- but they were RAPES. A married woman living in crowded quarters would let a stranger not her husband or relative into her home when she was alone. Whether she was 'religious' or not, she'd never even consider it. For a character who is presented as a good woman, adultery would have really torn her apart, coming from her small shtetl world. Shabbat candles are NOT BLOWN OUT. They are mekutzeh until Shabbat ends (ie, following Havdalah). And etc. There is little in the way of community scenes/celebrations, no scenes of simchot (such as brit milot or namings) which would have been a part of life, even if the family was falling away from being more observant (the part about not sitting shivah in that time, due to employment, is sadly accurate). Too much treif. I won't be finishing it.
Very, very disappointing. One star for the writing, which if I wasn't so taken aback by the complete absence of any character seeming to have knowledge of Jewish family laws, is a bit better than standard romance writing.
Suggest rewriting the book description, at least to include the words "political" and "romance" near the word "novel."
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
 Enjoyable, if you can overlook certain things Dec 07, 2008
By Julie
Other reviewers have mentioned that there are inaccuracies. I can't speak with any authority on the validity of that claim, but you do have to suspend your disbelief greatly at times. Most of the intimate scenes were handled with tact and delicacy, emphasizing the beauty of the moment, but occasionally, (including the 1st), the scene comes off almost as if the author forgot he needed to put in an intimate scene. To that end, I would not recommend a book like this to the younger of the YA crowd.
The version I got was terribly tiny and they certainly packed in the words. You get used to this, but it is annoying to have to strain your fingers to spread the book's pages so far apart just to see the words.
At times it seemed like the author got bored with his own characters, for you spend several chapters getting to know a character then it switches over to another one and doesn't really come back.
The last page is completely predictable, but nonetheless, satisfying. I'm not sure why there are soldiers on the back of the book though b/c you barely see any of the Nazi soldiers, let alone the fighting of WWII. Some chapters are completely irrelevant to the storyline, but overall, the book flows nicely. It didn't take me too long to read, maybe a week or so. As usual these days, there are several errors (grammatical or typographical), but for a 413 pg book, the half dozen mistakes is a minor nuisance.
If you're into historical fiction and don't have too much knowledge of WWII or early 1900 jewish immigrants, you should like the book.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Remember This Dream Dec 08, 2008
By Andrea N. Murphy
"ASN"
I loved this book, couldn't put it down. Remember This Dream humanizes the stories of a few people that lived in one of the most terrible, yet hopeful times in history. And as someone keenly interested in all matters "immigration", I admired the historic accuracy of the book. Obviously, the author took great pains to research his rather complicated subject matter. The characters in the book were richly developed and the layered plots (what was happening to Anna and family in America, what was happening with Dvoyra in Poland)were completely engrossing. I'm waiting for the mini-series on HBO!
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
 A microcosm of American immigrant and rural Polish shtetl life Dec 06, 2008
By Sarah
I was originally interested in reading "Remember This Dream" because my grandmother and great-grandparents immigrated from a small village near Lublin, Poland in 1913 around the same time as one of the novel's protagonists. Sadly, other than a few stories and a copy of their Russian-Polish passports and ship manifests, I have precious little information on my great-grandparents' immigrant experience, and was interested to see how the novel would handle such details as the ocean crossing (squalid doesn't even begin to describe the horrors faced by steerage class passengers).
Harold Gershowitz's "Remember This Dream" chronicles the lives of two sisters, Dvoyra and Anna, who have grown up in a Polish shtetl. Anna has been living with her in-laws and her three small children waiting for the opportunity to immigrate to America, where she will reunite with her husband. Dvoyra ends up staying in Poland, where she sees the horrors of WWI and WWII unfold firsthand. (For an excellent background on Polish shtetl life between the wars, be sure to watch Image Before My Eyes - A History of Jewish Life in Poland Before).
The main thrust of the novel is Anna's hardscrabble new life in America; her reunion with her husband yields an angry, bitter stranger obsessed with making ends meet to the point that he yanks his young daughters out of school and puts them to work in garment sweatshops. Union organizing takes up a hefty portion of the plot, with Anna and her daughters struggling to organize labor unions.
Meanwhile, in Poland Dvoyra's daughter Penina becomes involved in the blossoming Zionist movement even as Anna's daughter Rachel marries the head of the CGWA union. Following a half-century of American and European history, "Remember This Dream" serves as a microcosm of the political turmoil and pogroms of Eastern Europe and growing anti-Semitism that eventually culminated in the infamous concentration camps such as Auschwitz. From an American perspective, we see the gradual shedding of immigrant culture (particularly rebellion against shtetl culture) and Old World traditions. For an excellent celluloid take on this phenomenon, Hester Street features a Jewish shtetl immigrant desperate to shed his Old World image in order to prosper in the New, and is mortally embarrassed by his Old World wife when she arrives. The third part of the novel focuses on the Jewish ghettos and concentration camp experience. The ending was shocking in its intensity, muted only by the short epilogue that weaves together the final strands of Anna and Dvoyra's stories.
As I am only an amateur scholar of Yiddishkeit, I can't comment on the authenticity of Jewish ceremonies mentioned in the book, but I also picked up on the "blowing out of the Shabbos candles." Shabbos candles must be lit before sundown and may not be extinguished until they burn out naturally. It seemed that Anna's family is an accelerated version of the "melting pot" experience, and has shed their Old World religious and cultural customs in a single generation (including Anna) rather than across generations.
As other reviewers have commented, there are several extremely implausible scenarios and the intertwining stories skipped ahead at times, leaving me momentarily confused as I had to backtrack. This is a work of fiction, and as such takes liberties (take with a grain of kosher salt), but overall paints a vivid picture of the early-to-mid-20th century, of the struggles faced by recent immigrants, and the love of one family in the face of war's brutalities.
4 of 5 found the following review helpful:
 Remember This Dream Aug 07, 2005
By Karen Rothaus Rosenthal
Very powerful. The author uses a fictional family to correctly & historically portray the plight of the Jews from the early 1900's through World War II. The book addresses the background and reason for the mass exodus from Europe and Russia to the United States during the early part of the twentieth century - why some had the courage to leave and why others chose to stay. And then the author - using true historical figures, events and facts describes the fate of those left behind. Simultaneously, the author depicts life and the political atmosphere in Europe and the United States. One immediately becomes involved with the author's characters. This book is a fast read. I could not put it down.
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