LAND OF HOPE

``She—Rebekah—was going to have an education and make something of herself. Nothing was going to get in her way.'' Rebekah, 15, has been on the ship only a few days when she hears that America offers Jewish girls opportunities unheard of in Russia and makes her resolve. But though Rebekah is undaunted by the discomforts of steerage and a distressing passage through Ellis Island, she finds the Lower East Side of 1902 harder to cope with. Nothing has prepared her for the crowding, the squalor, or the economic necessity that forces her whole family to work in her uncle's sweatshop. Worst of all is her parents' refusal to educate her along with her brothers. Still, determination wins through; and though not understanding her break with tradition, her family supports her efforts to attend night school after work. Here, unfortunately, the vivid account of the journey and of the new life in ``the golden land'' is marred by overwriting and some triteness; still, with Sachs's Call Me Ruth (1982) out of print, little else is available in quite this vein, and Rebekah's indomitable courage is inspiring. (Fiction. 10+)