1.) During the Depression, work was hard to find. In the first chapter, Fania was telling mother have half of the shops were closed and how they couldn't start until they got a new president. She was also saying that when she did go to apply for a job, there was a huge mob of women waiting. It turned into such a push and shove that the police had to be called to call them all down. But only two women were chosen.
             2.) Mashah is the only one that has been exposed to the riches. Since she is so good looking, men buy her lunch. So with her lunch money she buys things for herself like toothbrushes, towels, and soap. Also she tells how that in rich peoples homes they had silver knives and forks, marble bathtubs that had hot and cold water that would run all day. Barely surviving on potatoes, the rest of the family had to share soap, towels and kitchen utensils.
             3.) I strongly disagree with the passage on pages nine and ten, about how the prayers of his daughters didn't count because God doesn't listen to women.
             4.) The narrator is a young woman. She wants to succeed, and she is willing to work hard for things. That's why she is called blood and iron. She is willing to work hard to achieve something.
             5.) Hester Street is full of pushcart peddlers, children playing in the gutters, and women pushing and shoving each other with their market baskets. The Lower East Side is a ghetto. Poor and dirty, this is were most of the Russian immigrants came to live.
             6.) Mashah is a young and beautiful. She only cares about herself and her looks, which she uses to obtain things like lunches from men. Father lives for the Torah. He eats breathes and sleeps the Torah and its' sayings. He even puts it before his family. Mashah puts herself before her family, and her pleasure for herself comes before helping out the family.
             7.) That even though they have little they try to live the best they can with what ...