My Little Life

<p>Not every immigrant who came to America went from rags to riches. Benjamin Vinar's parents grew up in comfortable circumstances in a town called Ostrog in the Ukraine but their circumstances quickly changed with the bloody arrival of World War I and the Russian Revolution. They barely made it out alive escaping to the United States where they settled in Rock Island Illinois.</p><p>Benjamin's parents often reminisced at the dinner table about the Ostrog of their youth a largely Jewish community of roughly eight thousand souls. Meanwhile their life in the American Midwest was a constant struggle. As a child Benjamin saw his father use all his strength to move iron stoves and massive oak furniture about his secondhand store to eke out a living. As Benjamin grew up his peers deserted earlier ways and the once-vibrant Jewish community declined as his generation deserted their grandfathers' ways en masse. It was already fading out of existence by the time he went to law school. </p><p>In <i>My Little Life</i> he breathes life back into what's been lost celebrating his Jewish heritage and sharing an important historical account while intricately exploring the mindset that his upbringing produced in him.</p>