For Better For Worse

The memoir of Rachel Semo Wool, For Better For Worse, is about her family's history going back to Bulgaria before the first World War.  It is fascinating the amount of detail she has both remembered and been able to collect about her relatives and how they lived life in Jewish Bulgaria all the way through til 1945.

Rachel reminisced with family members to flesh out the parts she could not remember or those experiences that happened before she was born.  Rachel or Shelly the family nickname for Rachel comes from a long and large extended family that lived for the most part in Sofia, Bulgaria.  She herself is the second daughter of Dr. Yosef and Flora Semo.  Her story starts with the matriarch of the family Baba Vintura who was orphaned at the age of 12 in 1870.  When her brothers married, her parents left her in their care and moved to the Holy Land, Palestine.  Vintura's brothers quickly married her off and so starts the story of Rachel Semo Wool's family saga.

This book is a wonderful chronicle of how life was lived in Europe during the early part of the 20th century.  How marriages were arranged and how children were treated and behaved.  The importance of work in comparison to schooling, and manual labor jobs in relation to professional positions.
Even if the reader doesn't know who any of the family members are in this book, and none of them are famous, this is a wonderful history of the average life in Bulgarian society.

Rachel's mother Flora spoke about her childhood and how she met and married her husband.  Though Rachel is surprised by her mother's behavior, Flora explains that at the time that was how a child would behave and listen to her parents wishes.  It is surprising in modern day by comparison, especially when you think about your own interactions with your parents or your child's responses to your trying to give advise as a parent.

Flora was given a special chance to go onto advanced education and studied dentistry for a year in Nancy, France.  She loved her experience to be on her own, studying and socializing on her own far from home.  But after the year, her parents required she return home.  Her mother was afraid that if she studied for five years and then returned home she would never find a husband.  That was the priority.  Flora listened to her parents even though she was disappointed.  Her daughter never understood and questioned her mother, "Why did you come back? Why did you give up your education? You were doing so well and had such a good time in France!  Why didn't you graduate and get your degree?"  First Flora explains that you just didn't behave that way in those days, "Resist?...What could I do?  They paid my tuition! ....My father was busy with so many important things!  My duty was to let him be.  If he felt something was wrong, he reacted and tried to help out.  If he didn't notice, I tried not to bother him."

Such a different way of thinking than children in present day society.  each generation has changed the way parent treat their children and even Rachel couldn't understand her mother's behavior.  Flora gave a further explanation,    "It wasn't serious in France.  ...In Bulgaria - at twenty five and with a nose like mine - I would have remained single, or gotten married to some old guy or a widower, and surely not an academic.  Here, in Israel the conditions are totally different, and it's hard to explain what it was like there so many years ago.  I agree that nowadays a girl should remain independent, provide for herself , and choose a suitable husband."

So from a historical perspective this is an interesting story.  This is the story of a large extended Jewish family who were financially secure and well educated.  Who with most of their entire family survived two World Wars and emigrated to Israel before the declaration of the state.  They did suffer some setbacks and loses but that on the whole they were successful and happy.