Departure Stories

"We weren't religious per se. The most frequent mention of God in our house was my mother yelling 'Goddammit!'" Part memoir, part social history, in Departure Stories: Betty Crocker Made Matzoh Balls (and other lies), Elisa Bernick uses her family’s experiences to explore Minnesota’s legacy of antisemitism and the struggle for women’s rights during the 1960s and early 1970s. She tells both heartbreaking and hilarious stories about being the only Jews in the suburb of New Hope during this period and shows how being considered “different” took a toll on her family, particularly her mother. This book discusses abandonment, abuse, intergenerational trauma, and divorce, but it uses humor and sensitivity to present a hopeful message about examining the flexibility of memory and the possibility of rewriting the stories we tell about trauma and transforming them into tales of empowerment. Deftly interweaving reporting, archival material, memoir, jokes, scrapbook fragments, personal commentary, and one very special Waikiki Meatballs recipe, Bernick explores how the invisible baggage of place and memory, Minnesota's uniquely antisemitic history, and the cultural shifts of feminism and changing marital expectations contributed to her family's eventual implosion. Departure Stories: Betty Crocker Made Matzoh Balls (and Other Lies) is a personal exploration of erasure, immigrants, and exiles that examines the ways departures—from places, families and memory—have far-reaching effects.