Thank you, Tara, for organizing this discussion, and thank you, Anita, for giving us your time. To everyone, a huge "thank you" for sharing your thoughts!

Thank you everyone for participating in our first online Book Club meeting, especially Anita Diamant! It was a joy, and we can't wait to see you next month.

What about Addie's father? I so get that after the one grandson died -- that he was afraid to love/attach to the future again in such an intimate way? He chose to attach to the bnei mitzvah as his way to connect to the future -- a far safer way.

This was my first experience with ANY book club, not just an online book club. Thanks for starting this!

I thank everyone for a fascinating look at Jewish Women's history in the early 20th Century. I can't wait to do more research.

I also LOVED the role of female friendship in this book. The peer networks were so important to Addie (as were the mentors, of course). As a historian and as a woman who relies on my women friends, this part of the story felt so true and important.

As we wrap up here, I want to let everyone here know about a special upcoming event: If you live in the NY area and want another opportunity to engage with Anita Diamant, JWA is co-sponsoring an event called "Women of the Book" with the Jewish Book Council at 6:30 on Tuesday, March 24 at the Jewish Museum. The event is the second in an exciting new series from the Jewish Book Council that brings together some of the finest writers of the day for conversations around contemporary Jewish life and identity. A panel of writers, including Anita Diamant, Elisa Albert, and Ruth Andrew Ellenson, will discuss their recent works and what it has meant to be a Jewish woman writer over the past several decades. The evening is free and and includes wine and refreshments, a book sale and signing, and the opportunity to visit The Jewish Museum galleries. Guests must pre-register. We'd love to see you there!

One of the things I was struck by is the role of family in this book. I think sometimes we tend to be nostalgic about the immigrant family as this tight structure, but for the most part, Addie feels like a figure who had to break free from her family to get what she wanted/needed and didn't get much support from them (except some from Betty). Her independence is really striking.

Gotta run, but thank you Anita, Tara, Judith and all of you on line. this was absolutely Terrific!

The specifics about what was not so great about Addie's husband stuck with me.

From Virginia A. Spatz:

(I thought there was going to be a question to being discussion here, but I see none. So, I'll just start...) The video posted here says Diamant wrote this book about the Rockport Lodge and how that expanded Addie Baum's view of the world and friendships for life. But I am wondering if it was written with some sort of social studies curriculum in mind: The book touches on major historical points -- immigration challenges and assimilation, health issues and shell-shock, oppression of women and labor issues, German versus other Ashkenazi Jewish observances, and white/Jewish flight from cities -- without presenting anything too challenging. In fact, it strikes me as very like an "American Girl" story for slightly older readers, i.e., really just mean to illustrate a time period, not to tell a particularly character-focused story.

The most interesting thing to me was Addie's discovering the anti-child-labor movement when she meets her soon-to-be-husband and how problematic that must have been for someone whose family survival depended on funds from the garment industry. Prior to that we hear very little about conditions and struggles in the factory, especially as Addie and her sister work in offices. But this is tossed off, as "yeah, I thought about my brother-in-law's company," but it's not posed as any kind of conflict in the family: Wasn't Levine upset to have a brother-in-law who was threatening his livelihood and the industry? There must have been some tension there, but it's not explored in the interview with the granddaughter. So, if Anita Diamant is to respond: I'd really like to know about this choice to glide right by what I'm guessing would have been at least as worthy of comment as the issue about which shul to join?

Perhaps because we only have what Addie told her granddaughter, we get only the most obvious (and understandable) anger: lack of recognition for women in the early part of the 20th Century, struggles in the newsroom, racial policies that kept some stories only in the Nation. What would the story have been like, had she been speaking to a peer? to someone in the labor movement? to a young organizer?

have to run. this was fun. thanks.

I thought the granddaughter becoming a Rabbi was a great ending. And don't let anyone tell you things are not better.

Tara: Will these comments remain here for us to access after the session. Some of them might lead to good questions for our book clubs.

It was really fun reading this book about the city I live in. Were there aspects of this immigrant history that you think are unique to Boston, or do you think Addie's story would have played out similarly in any other northeastern city?

Anita, has this book given you ideas for a sequel or for your next book? In the future, of course.

As someone who has studied the birth control movement in this period and Jewish women's involvement in it, I was particularly interested in the scene of the self-induced abortion, which I found so powerful. Anita, can you share a bit about your research and/or thinking for that story line?

Sorry to say that I must run. Enjoyed this, and will check back later to see how the rest of the discussion unfolds. Thank you, Anita, for a terrific book, and thanks, JWA, for this chat!

Anita, what do you think you learned from writing this book that impacted your life today?

Anita, did you have a target audience in mind when you wrote this book? (I am evidently older than many of the participants in this discussion, as I am already a grandmother. I can no longer interview either of my grandmothers or my mother, but my mom did tell me much about her childhood.) Have you any demographics about who is reading The Boston Girl? Ages? Any men? More people in the Boston area than elsewhere? More who are Jewish?

The relationships between Mameh and each of the 3 daughters were so different and so complex. It is so hard for me to understand how a mother can treat her daughters SO differently. Not to mention the destruction of self-esteem that was so present in the home.