During the early 1900s, the world experienced an anti-Semitic coup that was treated differently in all countries. Jewish life in Eastern Europe in the early 1900s was characterized by oppression, segregation, limited employment, and extreme racism. They were not allowed to marry people of their own race and people were willing to show their hatred (antisemitism) through decals or pins such as the Black Hundred's double-headed eagle on Mr. Maximovitch. In his novel The Fixer, Malamud tells the story of Yakov Bok, a Jew born in Russia in the early 1900s. Aspiring for a good future, he leaves his home for Kiev to start a new life. While living here he must hide his cultural background, even though he no longer believes in God, to protect any chance of a promising future. It is when he is accused of a murder that he struggles to find God and begins to question his life choices. The main themes of the book are segregation, the struggle with religion, the struggle for freedom and extreme racism, which are expressed through the life of Yakov Bok. In The Fixer, Malamud recreates the story of Mendel Belis, a Jew living in Keiv and framed for the murder of a young Christian boy. The book is written in a limited third-person view as it follows the life of Yakov Bok. He is a poor Jew who earns from his work and leaves his home in the hope of building a new and better life in Kiev. Yakov expresses his goal to his father-in-law when he says, “All I have now in this miserable city is a beggar's existence. Now I will try Kiev. If I can live there decently, that's what I'll do. Otherwise I will make sacrifices, save up and go to Amsterdam for a ship to America. In short, I have little, but h...... middle of paper ......I hate it because he doesn't allow Yakov to do anything and just continues to hurt him. She chains him to the bed, tries to poison him and beats him emotionally with searches and starvation. In Yakov's attempt to leave him and strive for a new, more pleasant life, he actually lived a life of pain and suffering. Yakov blames his religion for what happened to him, but the fact that he went to prison could have been a sign for him to find his religion again. His father-in-law said his religion will help him and even though he faced racism and segregation throughout his life, it was his religion that highlighted his dream of freedom. Malamud tried to emphasize through Yakov's life that, even through the worst treatment in the world and the possibility of death, having faith can lead you to this other door of freedom and the true life you have always wanted..