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Dear Mendl, Dear Reyzl
Yiddish Letter Manuals from Russia and America
Alice Nakhimovsky (Author), Roberta Newman (Author)
9780253011992
Hardback, published 15 April 2014
248 pages, 6 b&w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.499 kg
Reproductions of brivnshtelers form the core of the book and comprise the majority of the text, providing a ground-level window into a largely obscured past. ...[C]overs a neglected aspect of Jewish popular culture and deserves a wide readership. For all serious readers of Yiddish and immigrant Jewish culture and customs. ...These manuals provide us with a lens to better understand Jewish life at the time, as they mirror many of the challenges and concerns that Russian and American Jews were experiencing, and as they resonate with the emotional registers found in Yiddish literature and letters more generally. Dear Mendl, Dear Reyzl delivers more than one would expect because it goes beyond a linguistic study of letter-writing manuals and explicates their genre and social function. It is appropriate for students of Jewish life generally and Yiddishists of any age. A great deal of history is covered in this book as the authors discuss the social and economic stresses
that Jews faced on both sides of the ocean throughout this time period. Each section begins with an
explanation of a particular issue, but the real delight of the book is in reading the letters themselves. .
. . Highly Recommended.
At the turn of the 20th century, Jewish families scattered by migration could stay in touch only through letters. Jews in the Russian Empire and America wrote business letters, romantic letters, and emotionally intense family letters. But for many Jews who were unaccustomed to communicating their public and private thoughts in writing, correspondence was a challenge. How could they make sure their spelling was correct and they were organizing their thoughts properly? A popular solution was to consult brivnshtelers, Yiddish-language books of model letters. Dear Mendl, Dear Reyzl translates selections from these model-letter books and includes essays and annotations that illuminate their role as guides to a past culture.
Preface 1. The World of Brivnshtelers
Acknowledgments
Translation and Romanization
Encountering modernity
The brivnshteler and traditional education
The brivnshteler and the history of model letters
Yiddish language, Yiddish publishing, and the brivnshteler
The brivnshteler and literature
What makes the brivnshteler Jewish?
2. From the Pages of Brivnshtelers
Modernity and mobility
Parents and children: Russia
Parents and children: America
Courtship and marriage: Russia
Courtship and marriage: America
Business
Judaism and Jewish Identity
Imagining America
3. Beyond Letters
Bibliography
Index