Bintel Briefs Way Ahead of Times
Image by Liana Finck
The explosive popularity of the Yiddish advice column published in the Forverts from 1906 paved the way first for a genre and then an entire industry. Although it seems self-evident to us now, writing to a newspaper for advice was a revolutionary idea.
The Bintel Brief (literally “bundle of letters”) was the brainchild of iconic Forverts editor Abraham “Ab” Cahan, who also answered the early letters.
In her graphic novel, part of which will be serialized in the Forward, beginning with this excerpt, Liana Finck interweaves Cahan’s story with those stories contained in the letters.
Over the coming months bundles of stories will be tied together by a fantastical reimagining of how Cahan touched hearts and built a community with the Bintel Brief.
‘The Bintel Brief Exhibit’ opens at the Sixth and I synagogue in Washington, D.C., on January 11.
Liana Finck’s work is supported by a grant from the Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists, a partnership of Avoda Arts, JDub Records and the Foundation for Jewish Culture and made possible with major funding from UJA-Federation of New York.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
