60 pages • 2 hours read
Karen HesseLetters from Rifka
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
“September 2, 1919” Summary
Twelve-year-old Rifka is writing to her cousin Tovah on blank pages of a book of poetry by the 19th-century Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. Rifka tells Tovah how she and her Jewish family (her Mama, Papa, and brothers Nathan and Saul) are attempting to escape from their hometown of Berdichev, Ukraine (which in 1919 is still part of Russia). They will emigrate to the United States, where they will join Rifka’s three oldest brothers (Isaac, Reuben, and Asher), who moved there years before. There is an ongoing Russian Civil War, and Nathan has been in forced work with the Russian army but fled the night before to alert the family that the army was going to conscript Saul as well. Because Saul and Rifka bicker often, Rifka is at first glad to hear he may be taken (“Good riddance, I thought”)—but Papa tells the family to get ready to leave immediately, before the night is over (4).
The following morning, Rifka sits on the train platform, as the rest of the family hides in various boxcars. The family knows that soldiers will come looking to arrest Nathan for desertion and that the entire family is under threat of death if they are discovered. Because Rifka has blonde, curly hair, she does not look obviously Jewish, and her father tells her she can sit on the platform and keep watch without being noticed. Soldiers arrive and begin searching the train.
Rifka attempts to remain incognito. However, when the soldiers begin searching near her parents’ hiding place, she begins chatting with the soldiers to distract them. The soldiers are not suspicious because Rifka, though Yiddish is her first language, is able to speak Russian without an accent because she has a gift for languages. Rifka rambles on about German soldiers, books, and other topics, but one of the soldiers becomes suspicious.
Rifka’s Uncle Avrum (Tovah’s father) then arrives at the train platform, claiming that the factory he owns has been broken into. Tovah’s family members are the only people who know Rifka’s family is escaping. Rifka writes to Tovah in the pages of the Pushkin book because it is not safe to actually send her letters. The break-in was staged as a plan to distract the soldiers, and they indeed leave the platform to assist Avrum because “He has important friends” (14). The train begins moving, and Rifka jumps aboard, excited about heading to a new life in America.
“September 3, 1919” Summary
At the Polish border, Rifka’s family is made to disrobe for a health inspection. Rifka feels embarrassed to be completely naked, yet notes that her mother complies with the request cheerfully, even though the doctor inspecting them “took longer with Mama” (18). The family is fumigated to prevent any pests from entering Poland with them. As the family gathers their belongings, Rifka is crushed to realize her mother’s precious brass candlesticks, one of the few sentimental objects they took with them, were stolen. They then enter Poland, which Rifka thinks “does not look that different from Berdichev,” leading her to wonder if America will look the same as well (20).
“October 5, 1919” Summary
The family is in the town of Motziv, Poland. Rifka begins feeling sick, and the family seeks shelter in the shed of her father’s cousin who lives in Motziv. When Rifka’s illness worsens, the family has a medical student inspect her. He diagnoses her with typhus. Rifka is convinced that the disease “came from the doctor at the Polish border” (23). The medical student advises them to tell no one that Rifka has the contagious disease, and relays that Rifka will probably die. Papa promises to care for her so that they are not sent back to Berdichev. The entire family contracts typhus, except for Saul. Mama, Papa, and Nathan are placed in a hospital, while Saul stays with Rifka to care for her. Rifka has a dream in which dozens of hands try to take the candlesticks from her.
“November 3, 1919” Summary
Rifka overcomes her illness, and Saul finds the two of them a room at an inn while the rest of the family recovers in the hospital. Saul works in an orchard to earn money for the room. One morning, Rifka saves half of the herring and roll that Saul gives her for breakfast, intending to eat it later. The daughter of the inn owner steals it, angering Rifka, but Saul advises her to simply eat it all next time. Lonely during the days while Saul is away, Rifka begins exploring Motziv. One day, she tries to visit her mother in the hospital but is chased out by staff.
Rifka learns Polish quickly. One day at the hospital again, a doctor sees Rifka watching her mother. The doctor says that since Rifka has already had typhus and recovered, she can visit her mother without fear of becoming sick again, and suggests that “it may do [Mama] some good” to see Rifka (31). Though she is able to see her mother, Rifka is still lonely and misses her family.
Part 1 Analysis
Letters from Rifka opens by foregrounding both Rifka’s individual story and the historical conditions faced by Russian-Jewish emigrants. In their attempt to escape from Russia, Rifka’s family represents the development of the Russian-Jewish diaspora, which emigrated to New York and other places around the globe. Details about Rifka’s life, as presented in her letters to Tovah, represent other aspects of Russian-Jewish life, such as its multilingual culture. At the beginning of the novel, Rifka already speaks both Yiddish and Russian “without a Yiddish accent” (8). Shortly after escaping Russia, she quickly learns Polish, and Rifka’s linguistic abilities become a theme as the novel continues.
America, for Rifka’s family, represents a land of hope and new beginnings. With joy, she marvels, “I can hardly believe that I too will soon live in such a place as America” (15). Despite looking forward to the future, Rifka faces a variety of challenges as she and her family make their way across national borders. The experiences Rifka describes—like being made to strip naked for an inspection at the Polish border, being fumigated, being robbed, contracting typhus, and moving aboard crowded trains—are all historically realistic details about the plight of emigrants at the time.
Letters from Rifka takes the form of an epistolary novel, written in the pages of a book of Pushkin’s poetry, given to Rifka by her cousin Tovah. The letters detail personal observations about her parents, quarrels with her brother Saul, and reflections on her former home in addition to an account of the family’s escape. However, the letters are also like a diary, since they cannot actually be sent to Tovah; the discovery of her family’s escape would mean her relatives and friends in Russia would be persecuted by authorities. This unique situation both emphasizes Rifka’s continued connection to her past as she seeks to make a new life in the US and serves as a reminder of the way her family and other Jews were mistreated in Russia. The literary device of writing to Tovah without actually sending letters to her also recalls the writings of another persecuted Jewish girl: Anne Frank, in her Diary of a Young Girl, writes letters in her diary to an imaginary friend named Kitty and recounts the experience of living in Holland under the Nazi regime during World War II and being forced to go into hiding.
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