Who Gets In

By Norman Ravvin,

Book cover of Who Gets In: An Immigration Story

Book description

One man's immigration to the Canadian Prairies in the early 1930s reveals the character of Canada today as sharply as it did long ago. In 1930, a young Jewish man, Yehuda Eisenstein, arrived in Canada from Poland to escape persecution and in the hopes of starting a new life for…

Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Why read it?

1 author picked Who Gets In as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Ravvin has written excellent works of fiction and literary scholarship. His book is a masterful blend of two genres: family biography and social history.

I found this book to be so engrossing I could barely put it down. It traces the author’s grandfather’s dogged saga to emigrate from Poland to Canada, to find some mooring amidst the precarity of being a new immigrant, a foreigner, and a Jew, and to try desperately to bring over his wife during a time when Canada’s immigration gates were closing.

I love this book’s ability to seamlessly alternate between deep archives-based history (how did…

From David's list on Canadian Jewish life.

Want books like Who Gets In?

Our community of 11,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Who Gets In.

Browse books like Who Gets In

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in immigrants, Canada, and Poland?

Immigrants 179 books
Canada 450 books
Poland 118 books