Dear Mendl, Dear Reyzl: Yiddish Letter Manuals from Russia and America - Hardcover

Nakhimovsky, Alice; Newman, Roberta

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 025301199X ISBN 13: 9780253011992

Publisher: Indiana University Press, 2014

Synopsis

[ Dear Mendl, Dear Reyzl: Yiddish Letter Manuals from Russia and America By ( Author ) Apr-2014 Hardcover

About this title

Review:

...[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. Source: Library Journal

...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. Source: Jewish Book Council

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. Source: Publishers Weekly

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. Source: Slavic Review

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. Source: AJL Reviews

Review:

The vibrant world of the brivenshtelers, indispensible Yiddish guides to the art of letter writing for geographically mobile Jews, comes to life in this riveting volume. For the first time, model letters for every occasion―from desperate requests for money to advice about romance and jealousy, from excuses about late rents to accusations about having a Christmas tree―are accessible in rich detail and variety. Through the window of these long-forgotten manuals, unique for their paradoxical 'fluent banality,' this new history of Jewish emotions, sentiments, social propriety, and everyday life in Eastern Europe and America blazes a fresh, pioneering trail. Author: ChaeRan Y. Freeze Source: author of Everyday Jewish Life in Imperial Russia

About this edition

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 025301199X
• ISBN 13: 9780253011992
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 248