A Bintel Brief was an advice column that ran in the Jewish Daily Forward for over 60 years, beginning in 1906. A compilation of selected letters from readers, and the responses, was published in 1971, edited by Isaac Metzker. The letters and responses provide an amazing picture of Eastern European immigrant life in the Lower East Side in the early 20th century, and reflect the ethics and ideals these Jewish transplants adhered to notwithstanding the challenges of making a new life in an unfamiliar land. A remarkable book in so many ways!

You can view some sample letters here:

http://inside.sfuhs.org/dept/history/US_History_reader/Chapter8/bintelbrief.pdf
https://yale.imodules.com/s/1667/images/gid6/editor_documents/immigration_packet_3_part_2b.pdf

Here’s a sample from Metzker’s book which discusses our topic of learning and includes a letter published in 1907:

“”Worthy Editor,

Allow me a little space in your newspaper and, I beg you, give me some advice as to what to do

There are seven people in our family—parents and five children. I am the oldest child, a fourteen-yearold girl. We have been in the country two years and my father, who is a frail man, is the only one working to support the whole family.

I go to school, where I do very well. But since times are hard now and my father eamed only five dollars this week, I began to talk about giving up my studies and going to work in order to help my father as much as possible. But my mother didn’t even want to hear of it. She wants me to continue my education, She even went out and spent ten dollars on winter clothes for me, But I didn’t enjoy the clothes, because I think I am doing the wrong thing. Instead of bringing something into the house, my parents have to spend money on me,.

I have a lot of compassion for my parents. My mother is now pregnant, but she still has to take care of the three boarders we have in the house. Mother and Father work very hard and they want to keep me in school.

I am writing to you without their knowledge, and I beg you to tell me how to act. Hoping you can advise me, I remain,

Your reader, S.

ANSWER

The advice to the girl is that she should obey her parents and further her education, because in that way she will be able to give them greater satisfaction than if she went out to work.

The hunger for education was very great among the East Side Jews from Eastern Europe. Immigrant mothers who couldn’t speak English went to the library and held up the fingers of their hand to indicate the number of children they had. They then would get a card, give it to each of their children, and say, “Go, learn, read.”

I graduated from PS, 20 with George Gershwin, Edward G. Robinson, Paul Muni and Senator Jacob Javits, all sons of immigrants.
“”
From: A Bintel Brief – “Letters From The World Of Our Fathers” by Isaac Metzker
–Eva Kleederman