After the death of her father, Esther Broner wanted to honor him by saying the kaddish, the daily, eleven-month-long ritual of mourning usually performed by the eldest son. In innocence and ignorance, she finds a small neighborhood synagogue known as "the kaddish synagogue." Because she is a woman seeking to perform a traditionally male task, she is treated with suspicion. Immersed in a world for which she is ill-prepared, she finds absurd obstacles and poignant tenderness, humor and warmth, strength and adversity. Mornings and Mourning is an award-winning writer's eloquent account of her journey through grief in search of connection and community. In the synagogue, amidst a ragtag group of the faithful - joker, sportsman, retired button salesman, traditionalists, and the occasional street person recruited to make up a minyan - and hampered by her faltering Hebrew, she is required to sit hidden behind a veil and urged to quiet, "feminine" obedience.
A4