"From frozen ground, flowers grow…"
1919 Ukraine – In a small trunk in the corner of an abandoned shed a young woman huddles hiding from the Cossacks ravaging her shtetl, burning homes, and killing Jews. Shayna Rifkin, seventeen, loses everything. Desperate to find safety, she dreams of reaching America. Shayna rescues her four-year-old nephew and with her fiancé and his mother braves a perilous trek across Europe. Shayna's courage and determination bind them together, weaving a strong fabric from their separate threads to make a family, a safe place from which to build a new life in a new country.
This emotionally rich novel is steeped in the Yiddish culture of the shtetl and the Lower East Side of New York in the early 20th century.
Miriam Ruth Black's writing is stunning. "Shayna" draws readers into this epic story of one woman's flight from the dark night of the pograms where death and tragedy propel her to take the unimaginable journey through Europe to the "Goldeneh Medina," the Golden Land, as America was named by thousands of Eastern European Jews. Black has the talent and the heart to create a character and her story that readers will long remember. I loved this book!
~Shelly Christensen
Author, "From Longing to Belonging."
I loved this book! It's authentic, emotionally satisfying and a compelling read.
~Bonnie Dimun
Executive Director, Museum at Eldridge Street
