Loss and Discovery in a Traditional Culture: The Stories of Gloria DeVidas Kirchheimer and Ruth Knafo Setton

This paper explores the fiction of Gloria deVidas Kirchheimer and Ruth Knafo Setton. At the heart of these stories lie the tensions inherent in a woman's struggle for identity within a patriarchal culture that has been transplanted to America. In all cases, Kirchheimer and Setton employ an exquisite particularity of detail to evoke both the appeal and confinement of Sephardic culture. This strategy not only lends poignancy to their work but challenges readers to rethink their own assumptions and to confront a standard subject in women's fiction in a new way.