The Jewish children’s book Molly’s Pilgrim by Barbara Cohen is a heartwarming piece about acceptance, identity, and understanding the true origins and meaning of Thanksgiving. Molly is a young Jewish girl, daughter of immigrants from Russia, who struggles to fit in at school. Her classmates tease her for her parents’ accents, her clothing, and her cultural differences, making her feel out of place–a feeling eerily familiar for American Jews these days.
In class, Molly’s teacher assigns a project for Thanksgiving: each student must create a pilgrim doll to represent the holiday’s story. Molly’s immigrant mother, unfamiliar with the traditional image of the American pilgrim, helps her make a doll dressed in Russian attire, reflecting her family’s journey to America in search of religious freedom. Molly initially fears more teasing, but instead, her teacher uses her doll to explain to the class that Molly’s family are indeed modern-day pilgrims similar to the pilgrims in the Thanksgiving story. The teacher goes on further to explore the origins of Thanksgiving, explaining that the first American pilgrims based their celebration on the biblical festival of Sukkot, the Jewish harvest holiday celebrated every autumn. The book ends with both Molly and her non-Jewish classmates gaining a deeper understanding of this celebration of freedom and gratitude we know as Thanksgiving.
When I was a little girl, I attended public school and was often the only Jewish child in my grade. I remember my parents coming to my elementary class and reading Molly’s Pilgrim to me and my peers. We were not too young to understand the powerful message about the value of diversity in our country and the universality of the biblically originated story of the human quest for freedom. I am so thankful to my parents for bringing this lesson to my childhood learning space and to the teacher who invited them to share this Jewish immigrant story. And this week, I will read Cohen’s book to my own daughters as we prepare to celebrate this special, and rather Jew-ish, American holiday.
This Thanksgiving, may we be immensely proud and grateful for the Jewish roots of this American day of celebration, and may we all reflect deeply on the themes of gratitude, community, connection to nature, and loving acceptance for all those who dwell in our great nation.
–Cantor Emma Lutz