INSIDE OUR JEWISH ADVICE COLUMN |
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I'm Beth Harpaz, a copy editor at the Forward, and I've been shepherding our Bintel Brief advice column lately. Below you'll find some Bintel back stories, along with my unsolicited advice on things to eat, read and listen to, and links to recent columns. |
When Bintel Brief was first published in the early 1900s, it provided vital information for new immigrants trying to navigate life in the U.S. There were letters from families living in dire poverty, workers being exploited by their bosses, and immigrants being detained in terrible conditions at Ellis Island. Readers not only got advice about personal problems, but they learned about their rights in America. We recently got a letter from a descendant of one of those early readers. Toni Goldrich recalled that her widowed grandmother became friends with a neighbor, Mrs. Glassberg, while reading Bintel columns together in West Philadelphia. Each woman was raising four kids apiece on her own. “They bonded over being immigrants and single parents and surviving the Depression,” Goldrich wrote. “My grandmother would come home from work every day and begin cleaning her house. Her neighbor would come over every day and she would read the Bintel Brief to my grandmother. They would share their thoughts about the questions and about the advice. Eventually all the children became friends. These friendships extended for many, many years.” One of Glassberg’s children introduced Goldrich’s parents to each other, and Goldrich remains close with Glassberg’s surviving children, now in their 90s. Those early Bintel Brief letters offer a fascinating window into Jewish immigrant life in the first half of the 20th century. You can read a selection of them in several books. |
Recommendations you didn't ask for |
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| LISTEN: Playing Anne Frank,the new podcast from Forward executive editor, Adam Langer, is a seven-episode series about the Broadway show and Hollywood film inspired by The Diary of Anne Frank. I’ve loved going down rabbit holes on every episode, learning, for example, that it was Eleanor Roosevelt’s newspaper column that brought the book to fame, and that Hollywood actors who were blacklisted as communists found work in the show on Broadway. You can find the podcast here. |
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| SEE: On Broadway through August, Paradestars Ben Platt as Leo Frank, a young Jewish man from New York who moves to Atlanta to manage a factory. He’s wrongly accused of murdering a 13-year-old girl. I won’t spoil the ending in case you’re not familiar with the tragic true story, but I’ll just say, bring tissues. The show got rave reviews in a New York City Center production last year. The Broadway production is now in previews — and it already proved its relevance when neo-Nazis showed up to harass theatergoers. It officially opens March 16. |
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| READ: The Forward book club’s next pick is Saul Bellow’s Adventures of Augie March. To join the March 15 meeting, email bookclub@forward.com. If your taste in fiction runs more to crime stories, consider Walter Mosley’s latest, Every Man a King, about a Black ex-cop investigating a white supremacist. I recently talked to Mosley about, among other things, his Jewish mother, Ella Slatkin, pictured here; his cousin Lily's matzo ball soup, and his Uncle Chaim, a tailor from the old country. |
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| EAT: This time of year, even a diehard New Yorker like me starts to go nuts from the city’s relentlessly gray and chilly weather. So I flew to LA for some California sunshine. While there, I had lunch with the Forward’s West Coast staff at Lodge Bread. Their falafel and smoked fish plate (trout andsalmon!) are to die for. I also took a quick trip to Washington, D.C., where the cherry blossoms had turned pink but hadn’t quite popped. I loved the multicultural sign at D.C.'s Bread Furst, advertising goodies for three merrymaking holidays: Mardi Gras king cake, Purim hamentashen and Irish soda bread for St. Patrick’s Day. Bread Furst’s proprietor, Mark Furstenberg, is a James Beard award winner and brother of the late Carla Cohen, founder of the legendary Politics & Prose bookstore. |
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Don't be a stranger! Have you read, watched, heard, eaten or done something lately that’s Jewish and fabulous? Email bintel@forward.com. |
I love reading advice columns, and I've sent my own problems off to more than one, so it's been a thrill (as well as a sobering responsibility) to be on the other side as a giver of advice rather than a seeker. While I'm new to Bintel Brief, the column has been solving problems for Forward readers since 1906. But lately our inbox has not been overflowing … which, dear readers, is where you come in. I’m hoping you can help us to help you. Please send us your questions about love, family, work, neighbors, friendship, Jewish traditions or anything else that’s on your mind. Email us, use this form, or if you’re on Twitter, message us there. Not only can we offer a sympathetic ear and good advice, but as the premier U.S. Jewish news outlet, we can quickly get an expert answer to just about any question. We recently got rabbinical guidance for a pregnant reader who wants to opt out of circumcision for the baby, but worries that he won't be considered Jewish. So, how can we help you? We can’t wait to find out. Send us your ‘Dear Bintel’ letters. And don't hesitate to let us know what you think of our advice. |
ICYMI, here are the columns we’ve run since our last newsletter: |
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