Written by a sixteen-year-old Jewish girl living in the South's largest metropolis during the early years of the Civil War, this previously unpublished diary is an invaluable historical and cultural document.

It enhances our knowledge of early southern Jewish religious and social life; the cosmopolitan milieu of New Orleans; Confederate army activities and the Union occupation of the city; and, especially, the struggle by an urban civilian population to maintain daily life in the face of grim news from battlefields, the devaluation of Confederate currency, food shortages, closing schools, and the loss of family members.