My grandma gave me the “Bintel Brief” book that she had—this collection of letters that was published in 1971—that’s when all the jadedness fell away… - Liana Finck

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My grandma gave me the “Bintel Brief” book that she had—this collection of letters that was published in 1971—that’s when all the jadedness fell away. I was transported...The book (“Bintel Brief”) is a collection of short stories based on letters written to the Yiddish advice column “A Bintel Brief” that ran in the newspaper the Forward beginning in 1906. The letters were very intense—they were by new immigrants to the United States from Eastern Europe, and they deal with a lot of life-or-death issues—but they are also funny, weird, and sweet.