Since 1906, the Forward has been answering reader dilemmas about daily life in “A Bintel Brief,” Yiddish for a bundle of letters. Send your queries to [email protected], and listen to a podcast version of our signature advice column.
Bintel Brief
The Latest
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Opinion One Last Letter to Good People: Farewell, Amos Kenan
The news of Amos Kenan’s death in Tel Aviv August 4 came as a surprising, almost physical shock. A bohemian artist and journalist from Israel’s founding generation, Kenan has been on my mind a lot in the past few weeks. I met him only a couple of times, probably 40 years ago, when I was…
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Life My Parents Want Me To Be an Actuary; I Want To Run a Casino
Dear Bintel Brief: I’m 18 and reside on Long Island. My parents want me to be an actuary. (I don’t even know what that is; I think it has to do with birds.) But I want to attend Tulane University, enroll in their Casino Management program. My mother (I love her dearly) hasn’t been to…
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Life Help! I’m Sick of Overparenting My Kids
Dear Bintel Brief: I want to be a Free-Range parent, I really do. I want to let my kids have the same kind of fun I had as a child. But I am so paranoid it is ridiculous. When I was in third, grade I used to walk a few blocks up the street to…
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Life My Husband’s Atheism Is Cramping My Style
Dear Bintel Brief, My husband and I had a Jewish home. We were active members of our synagogue and celebrated all the Jewish holidays. My husband recently declared himself an atheist and gave up on all things religious. I still want to light candles and celebrate Shabbat, have seders, etc., but he refuses to participate….
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Life Help! My Daughter Is Seeking an ‘Open’ Marriage
Dear Bintel Brief: In 1995 one of my six daughters, married for the first time. We thought at the time that she was truly getting married, and I liked her young man. For maybe a dozen years before her marriage she had been leading an unconventional, “new-age” lifestyle in the San Francisco Bay Area, perhaps…
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Life ‘Free Range’ Mom Lenore Skenazy To Advise Forward Readers
Columnist and humorist Lenore Skenazy will be answering readers’ questions as the Forward’s next Bintel Brief advice columnist. Skenazy, a former New York Daily News and New York Sun columnist, now writes a syndicated column that appears in more than 100 newspapers. She also runs The Week magazine’s topical humor contest, “hat’s Next?” She is,…
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Life Paying Cash, Helping a Tax-Cheat?
Dear Bintel Brief, If a cleaning lady, repairman, tradesman or even a doctor quotes a price to do a service, but then immediately offers to reduce the price if you pay cash, and you suspect the lower price is offered because the provider will not report the income and pay taxes, are you participating in…
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Life Bridal Shower TMI?
Dear Bintel Brief, Nobody knows that I was once in a same-sex relationship. My former lover, now just a friend, has been invited to my bridal shower. I know that the hostesses are going to ask all the guests to introduce themselves and say how they know me. I am mortified. What if the truth…
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