I’m dedicating My Mother’s Mirror to women of all ages around the world who seek meaningful, liberated, and confident lives.
“Learning something meaningful, bonding over it, and spreading the knowledge can generate a flight of change. With introspection, courage, and grit, you can be that domino and influence a movement. My mother is the domino that moves me to model her character and work as she does, in tribute to truth seeking and justice via her passions. She always says, “Sabrina, my daughter, is my inspiration: She is not only my master but my masterpiece.” My mother, too, has been and will always be mine.” ……
ABOUT THE BOOK
Who am I? What’s my purpose? How much longer can I endure this pain? Everyone encounters these moments– waves of identity crisis crashing that swallow your confidence, dignity, and dreams. If we all endure these earth-shattering moments, how do we emerge from the rubble? How do we rouse ourselves from darkness to illuminate roads ahead?
My Mother’s Mirror is a collection of tumultuous true stories entangled in identity crisis, relationships, motherhood, parenting, and adolescence. A memoir-style book that shifts from a daughter’s perspective to her mother’s tells a generational story of acquiring principles to cultivate oneself with grit, integrity, and tenacity to find personal power and fulfillment.
The turbulent journey is illustrated through introspection, cultural blending, and transforming conflictive paradigms. It opens with my teenage experiences in highschool and beyond, then ties back to my mother’s roots. My mom’s story originates in a mountain-top village in the Russian Caucasus, where tribal traditions indiscriminately confine women to patriarchal standards. Upon emigrating to Israel, a cultural melting pot with intense racial divide, is infused with communal values that strive toward the collective good. The journey continues in Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox quarter, allured by social and economic prestige, then transitions to the bustling, male-dominated Wall Street sphere, and finally, to the placid paradise of San Diego, California.
This voyage of transformation demonstrates how to embrace painful moments as opportunities to cultivate inner-strength. I dedicate each story to women around the world who seek meaningful, liberated, and confident lives.
MY INSPIRATION
COVID 19 forced us all to isolate in our homes. For some, the pandemic hindered a transition from one chapter of life to the next. In 2020– the year I eagerly look toward, to set foot into the college world– I had to stay behind.
While adamantly opposed to taking a gap year, quarantine blessed me with some relaxation after many months of high school stress and anxiety. I had all the free time to relish in books I wanted to read and indulge myself in binge-worthy TV shows and movies. My mom and I got hooked on the series, ‘Unorthodox:’ We finished it in two nights.
Aware that my mom had been immersed in a similar lifestyle in her past, I asked her how accurate the series was. She told me that the show did not reflect her exact experience, but that the overall portrayal of the Hasidic community stayed close to the truth.
I began researching the topic avidly and was able to connect my new knowledge to the stories my mother had shared about her early life during our endless quarantine walks. Then something clicked: If Unorthodox was a national hit, my mom’s life story could be one too! I insisted that she write her memoir.
“I’ve tried. I have pieces, but I don’t have the skill to put them together.”
“Well, if you’re not going to do it, I’ll write it for you. Seriously.”
I began tinkering with an intro, and the rest was history…
My sacred time with my mom enabled me to understand how she came from such restrictive communities to become the strong-willed, determined, and compassionate woman she is today. Life through cultural and personal extremes precisely drove her transformation, and bestowed a duty upon her to help others do the same. She raised me this way, and her advice has inspired my attitude toward relationships and life in general.
I wish to pass on the tools and techniques to help women transform each obstacle into an opportunity through our paired narrative. I’ve been raised with support and to support, so there is no greater gift than using our stories to connect with others and empower them to be their best selves.
EXCERPTS FROM THE BOOK
“Select, don’t be selected’ became my mantra. When rejected, I found liberty…I realized what I had gained from the relationship, and this would translate to progress in the next stage of my life. Harnessing personal power through reflecting on our break-up actually bolstered my self-esteem.”
Table of Contents
My Mother’s Mirror consists of eight parts. In the first section, Daughter’s Reflections,
I tell my story from adolescence through writing this book. In the other seven sections,
my mother shares her life story and roots from her perspective. Both sections reunite
at the conclusion, whereby one will understand how my mother’s life devoted to
identity-development and resilience shapes my character.