Morris S Riskind Author

Morris S. Riskind was born in 1911 in Eagle Pass, Texas, a Rio Grande border town about 140 miles southwest of San Antonio. His parents, Russian Jewish immigrants, arrived there the previous year from Chicago and opened a large retail clothing store on Main Street. Morris grew up in the family apartment above the store. For three generations, the Riskinds were at the heart of the town's small but active Jewish community and of its lively and multilingual downtown commercial district. Riskind died in 2006, but his memoir preserves his recollections of how Jewish identity, family business, and the border environment intersected in a small binational community.

Bryan Edward Stone is a professor of history at Del Mar College, where he teaches courses in US history and was named the 2019 recipient of the Aileen Creighton Award for Teaching Excellence and the 2021 Teacher of the Year. He is the author of The Chosen Folks: Jews on the Frontiers of Texas and the editor of Alexander Gurwitz's historical memoir Memories of Two Generations: A Yiddish Life in Russia and Texas. He lives in Corpus Christi, Texas.