A Bintel Brief: Sixty Years of Letters from the Lower East Side to the Jewish Daily Forward [Paperback]

Isaac Metzker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1982 | ISBN-10: 0874413451 | ISBN-13: 978-0874413458

For more than eighty years the Jewish Daily Forward's legendary advice column, "A Bintel Brief" ("a bundle of letters") dispensed shrewd, practical, and fair-minded advice to its readers. Created in 1906 to help bewildered Eastern European immigrants learn about their new country, the column also gave them a forum for seeking advice and support in the face of problems ranging from wrenching spiritual dilemmas to petty family squabbles to the sometimes hilarious predicaments that result when Old World meets New Isaac Metzker's beloved selection of these letters and responses has become for today's readers a remarkable oral record not only of the varied problems of Jewish immigrant life in America but also of the catastrophic events of the first half of our century.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A Bintel Brief was a part of my life at a time when anything that is a part of your life is of crucial importance.... Isaac Metzker has reminded me of a debt I can never repay. Maybe you will help me. By reading this wonderful, wonderful book. Anti telling other people to read it. You will be doing them and every other American a service."

Jerome Weidman, New York Times Book Review

"The letters reveal a rather wide range of opinion, but one constant throughout the years seems to have been ethical perplexities, and it is impressive that no many readers wrote in not to be told that they were right, but to find out what, in the opinion of the editors and the other readers, was right."

New Yorker --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Language Notes

Text: English, Yiddish (translation)

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Product Details

• Paperback: 214 pages
• Publisher: Behrman House (July 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0874413451
• ISBN-13: 978-0874413458
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,166,393 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Dear Abba a Hit, February 17, 2012

By 

Jerry Spingarn (Norwood, Ma) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: A Bintel Brief: Sixty Years of (Paperback)

These letters to the editor of the Jewish Forward give insight into the trials and tribulations of the early 20th century. Most correspondence is from recent immigrants to the United States who are trying to adjust to working conditions, personal relationships, family matters and legal problems. In spite of all the myriad issues, one is left with the impression that the letter writers are happy to have arrived in the "Golden Land".

5.0 out of 5 stars Sorry my parents never told me, April 4, 2011

By 

Eunice Berger (BOYNTON BEACH, FL, US) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: A Bintel Brief: Sixty Years of (Paperback)

Sorry my parents never told me what it was like when they arrived in Boston and New York. They decided to become American, go to night school to learn how to read and write English, and never talk about their past. This book opened my eyes as to how hard they must have had it when they arrived and became better people because of it.

5.0 out of 5 stars It was not so easy to become Americans, January 19, 2006

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Bintel Brief: Sixty Years of Letters From the Lower East Side to the Jewish Daily Forward (Mass Market Paperback)

These letters point to with anguish and humor to the struggles and adjustments of the immigrant Jewish community in America. They go into intimate detail in illustrating the life of a community which would come to contribute so much to American life.