Helen S Latner

A Price Above Rubies Helen S Latner

Blume Speiser, daughter of a rabbi, longs to escape the constraints of an Orthodox Hasidic woman's life. She seeks freedom, to get a secular education, and to choose a husband herself. In her world, however, what she may study, whom she may love, and when, are rigidly prescribed. She vows that she is not going to live like her half-sister Itke, locked in a loveless marriage to a rabbi, her cousin Fay, powerless to protect her son from her husband's rigid conformity, or her sisters Charlotte, who has distanced herself from the family to be "modern," or Rivke, who glows in a haze of perpetual pregnancy. Blume changes her name to Blossom and embarks on a journey toward a different life, one of sophistication and freedom, political corruption and fraud, passion and betrayal. Can Blossom find the life she desires? Drama, humor and a rich tapestry of Hasidic tradition surround the life events in Blossom's story: weddings, divorces, bar mitzvahs, circumcision feasts, mikveh rituals and mourning observances.