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With
an introduction by Steven Berkoff
Born into a poverty-stricken shtetl in nineteenth-century Russia, Phineas Kahn is driven first to Vienna and then to London's East end, in a desperate attempt to scrape a living for himself and his family.
This moving tale of an immigrant's struggle to create a human existence is also an attempt to speak across the world of difference that opens up between first generations of immigrants and their children. The story evokes forgotten villages and difficult journeys, terrible suffering and warm humanity - a history held in common by many in the Jewish diaspora, and generations of migrants all over the world.
Simon Blumenfeld, himself the son of a Russian immigrant, was born and brought up in the East End. Jew Boy, his first novel, was republished by Lawrence and Wishart in 1986. Both novels were written in the 30's. His play Battle of Cable Street was performed at the 1987 Edinburgh festival.