The Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers Paperback – February 12, 2008

Beautifully crafted story of a family struggling through the period surrounding WWI England from the vantage of a child. The ubiquitous poverty, anger and tenacious hope feel like living beings. The reader can almost smell stench of human waste and almost wistful scent fish and chips. What an enlightening, moving book.

What a wonderful story/memoir. Set in Northern England just after the turn of the 20th century, Harry Bernstein recounts his childhood with amazing clarity. The "Invisible wall" relates to a religious divide running right down the street of his childhood. Christians on one side, Jews on the other. Never the twain shall meet.At that time in history, England had opened its arms to the European Jews escaping persecution. Though the Government accepted those fleeing, it seems the populace didn't. So rose the invisible walls. Such is the divisive nature of religion.Harry recounts the divides that separated people that lived within feet of each other. He tells of the torment he and his siblings faced daily from the Christian kids. The opportunities for Christians were not there for the Jews and so on and so on...The two sides come together briefly from time to time. Tragedy united the two sides as families lost sons in WW I. Sometimes the wall came down and humanity won but, inevitably, the wall went back up.Harry's older sister did the unthinkable and married a lad from the other side of the street. The wall got higher but eventually came back down. Harry then leaves England for America and the book ends.A short Epilogue has Harry and his wife returning to the street some 40 yrs later and this puts a fitting end to a very engaging memoir.Summary: Highly engaging and thought provoking memoir about Northern England at the turn of the 20th century. Nothing too clever, nothing too fancy just straightforward, enjoyable reading. Highly recommended.

When I first heard about this book in the news I was already hooked. Harry Bernstein, in his 90's and lonely after the death of his wife of 60+ years, writes his memories of growing up in a Lancashire mill town in England in the early 1900's. He describes the "invisible wall" that ran down the middle of his street, keeping the Jews on his side and the Christians on the other mostly separate. The only thing they really had in common was poverty and a distrust of each other. It's an amazing memoir as he remembers some of the incidents that happened on his street, such as going to school for the first time, his sister Lily winning a scholarship to the grammar school, and the young men who went to fight in WWI. He tells of the sacrifices his mother made for the children, and how mean and uncaring his father was. The one thing that sort of brought the two sides together was when his sister fell in love with a Christian boy, although it caused a lot of trouble and heartache.Overall, a very difficult book to put down from the very first sentence. The writing is beautiful and descriptive, and gives a sense of the hardships the working poor faced. But it's not all sadness, and there are some bright moments, although it reads very much like a Dickens novel in many respects. The bigotry of both sides of the street is detailed and told without bitterness. And Bernstein makes his family and neighbors come alive - you feel real sympathy for his mother and sister and their hopes and dreams, and even some for his alcoholic father. It's difficult to describe the emotions in the book, and yet I couldn't wait to keep reading it. Perhaps the best book I've read in a long time and I fully recommend it.

This book is so engaging that I have a hard time putting it down.

The Invisible Wall, begins when Harry Bernstein was four years old.Harry was raised in the English mill town of Stockport. His father worked in a tailor shop, while his mother struggled to feed, clothe, and educate their children. Much of his father's meager salary went for his drinking and gambling, and the family was poorer than most. The family were observant Jews, whose life revolved around the Sabbath and Holy Days.The street the family lived on was populated with similar families. The Jews lived on one side of the street, and the Christians lived on the other. Down the middle of the street runs the "invisible wall" of the title. Except for attending the same schools and frequenting each others' shops, the Christians and Jews had little to do with one another. When one Jewish girl fell in love with an unsuitable Christian boy, her family shipped her off to a relative in Australia. While there was some animosity between the two sides of the street, the families mostly co-existed in an uneasy peace.Life changes, however, during the Great War. The families rely on each other for news of the war and of their sons. All mourn when a son is killed or wounded.When the soldiers return from the War, the budding relationship between Harry's sister Lily and the Christian neighbor Arthur Forshaw blossoms. Harry becomes Lily's co-conspirator in her trysts with Arthur.There are many poignant scenes in The Invisible Wall. This memoir reminded me of Angela's Ashes. The ignorance and poverty of both families was strikingly similar, but The Invisible Wall was much more focused on the relationships between the Christians and Jews than the fact of the poverty.This book tells a very sad, but true story. As in Angela's Ashes, the redemption comes from the author's successful life in America, a stark contrast to its meager beginning

A gentle read that gives an insight the author,s family struggles with an uncouth, drunk father and a mother who worked hard to make her children believe that a better world exists. All this is put on a larger canvas of friendships and a deep bias between Jews and the genteel families that existed in their society. A must read.

Raccomandatomi ho deciso di leggerlo.. All'inizio ho fatto fatica per il linguaggio palesemente di una persona anziana.. Poi mi ha preso ed ho letto questa storia di povertà inimmaginabile e lotte di sopravvivenza quotidiane, di ignoranza e forza d'animo.. Un bel libro e da leggere ma forse non per tutti..

A priceless glimpse into a life that's gone - a northern English street with Jews on one side and Christians on the other, and an invisible wall down the middle. The book follows Harry, from the Jewish side, and what happens to that invisible wall. For me, it was fascinating since I grew up not far away from Harry's street and recognised many of the street scenes depicted. A well-written book that was had to put down.

A bit of Dickens, the merit that it all seems so true. Some of the characters are magnified while others rest in the shade. A bit of manicheism, Harry's father is a brute and Rose, one of the sisters is also mean and nasty. But a good account of life,of separation of Jews from Christians.

This was a glorious book of courage and heartache. It was beautifully written and beings the lives of the characters vividly to life.