FernFolio

When they fled the pogroms in Russia and made their way to Canada, the inhabitants of Braslav thought they were coming to a land of hope and opportunity. However, though they are free from the fear of soldiers arriving to burn their homes and kill them, Yossi and his family discover that they have traded one form of injustice for another.
While Yossi’s father, Avram, and soon-to-be brother-in-law, Daniel, work long days in the sweatshops of lower Montreal, his mother, Gussie, his seventeen year-old sister, Miriam, and Miriam’s soon-to-be mother-in-law, Sadie, labour over an old sewing machine doing piecework to supplement their meagre income. Yossi sells newspapers on the street and carries bundles for Steiner’s sweat shop before attending school each day. Yet, even with everyone working, the two families can afford only a small two-bedroom apartment, and everyday items such as enough food and warm clothing are always a little beyond their reach. Daniel and Miriam despair of ever earning enough to get married and find their own apartment.
Daniel and other young men who work in the sweat shops decide to organize a walkout in support of better working conditions and higher wages, and begin to meet in secret to plan their protest. Though Yossi is excited by the idea of his friends and their families finally taking action against the unjust working conditions at Steiner’s, he is worried by his father’s objections as well as by Avram’s growing weakness, and fears that Daniel’s actions might bring disaster upon the family.
Yossi is also preoccupied by a exciting new game he has discovered in the streets of Montreal, and by the young French Canadian boys who play it. As he learns more about hockey and makes friends with René, Michel, Jean-Paul and the others, Yossi begins to long for a pair of skates so that he can play, too. But, with his father’s illness and the family’s constant state of poverty, will Yossi ever be able to afford the $2.00 cost of skates?
Yossi’s Goal is a lovely story about the immigrant experiences of poor Russian Jews who came to Canada in the 1890s to escape the pogroms. It is told with humour and tenderness by Ellen Schwartz.
FernFolio Editor