Bittersweet Berries Growing Up Jewish in Minnesota by Ruth F. Brin Signed by author with gift dedication. "I grew up in Saint Paul, Minnesota in the 1920s and '30s in a middle-class Jewish family, mostly functioning well in spite of difficulties. Does that make my story typical of middle-class people in those days? Of girls of the time? Of Jews? I don't think so. Not many girls grew up in the 1920s with a college- educated mother who worked for suffrage and birth control and believed in women's rights. That alone made my girlhood experiences different. So begins Ruth F. Brin's compelling memoir, one that reveals the childhood beginnings of her life as feminist thinker, poet and well-respected writer of the Jewish faith. Brin draws close and loving portraits of her parents and older brothers. and outlines the history of her paternal grandparents who came to America from Austria-Hungary in the late 1880s to settle in Saint Paul. Early on, Brin relates her growing sense of how her religious faith will be integrated into her life and the ways in which she and her family must confront and survive instances of anti-Semitism. The author's original poems combine with her Family's traditional stories to make Bittersweet Berries a unique narrative of one woman's beginnings and growth as an accomplished writer and religious thinker. Ruth F. Bran, born in 1921, is the author of Jewish/Biblical children's books and is a frequent contributor to prayer books of the Reform, Reconstructionist, and Conservative movements. Her poetry is collected in Harvest: Collected Poems and Prayers. She is from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Pages in unmarked condition. Cover page is signed by Ruth F. Bran, with gift dedication. Cover has some light shelf wear to edges and corners