Joseph Antin

Joseph Antin, the only brother of Mary Antin, is a figure whose trajectory from the nightmare of the Pale of Settlement to the promise of American public schooling forms one of the most pointed contrasts in The Promised Land. He was the third child and only son in the Antin family, named for his father's father, and his childhood in Polotzk was defined by a hatred of the heder that no amount of whipping could cure. His story, as told by his sister, is a testament to the difference between the Old World's method of forcing learning and the New World's method of inspiring it, and it culminates in his emergence as a young civic leader who founded a debating club to settle the problems of the Republic.