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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Life How Should We Honor the Deceased at a Simcha?
Dear Bintel Brief: My son’s bar mitzvah is later this month, and I am so proud of him. At the event, he has expressed a desire to honor his mother, my wife, who died last year after a long illness. But he has also expressed concern that he would be injecting a dose of sadness…
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Life My Son Is Refusing To Circumcise His Newborn
Dear Bintel Brief: My son married a non-Jewish woman. They have baby boy, and decided not to have a circumcision. My husband and I have told my son and his wife how important this is to us, but they still will not do it. Recently, we have read more about the health benefits of circumcision….
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Life Help! My Oldest Friend Won’t Give a Toast at My Wedding
Dear Bintel Brief, I have a dilemma concerning my upcoming wedding. During the reception we plan to have five or so guests of honor give toasts. I asked one of my closest childhood friends how he would feel about being one of the toasters and I immediately sensed an unexpected ambivalence on his part. Once…
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Life Former Mayor: Assisted Suicide Is Not Necessarily the Answer
Dear Bintel Brief: Until very recently, I considered myself an average American woman. I am foreign-born, but I’ve been here for many years — and I love the country that adopted me. I voted diligently in every election. I was also very active and productive. I worked as a volunteer. I was athletic. Suddenly, without…
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Life Former Mayor Ed Koch Has Some Advice for Forward Readers
Edward I. Koch, the 105th mayor of New York — and the city’s second Jewish mayor — will be the Forward’s next guest Bintel Brief advice columnist. Koch, 84, is an author of more than a dozen books, including, most recently, “The Koch Papers: My Fight Against Anti-Semitism” (Palgrave, 2008), written with Rafael Medoff. A…
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Life The Toll of Traveling With a Toddler
Dear Mr. Zaslow, My husband, toddler son and I left New York for Washington about a year ago. My relatives are in Atlanta; his are back in New York. Since we are close to both sets of parents, we travel very frequently to Atlanta or New York. We go to Atlanta two or three times…
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Life A JDate Love Triangle
Dear Mr. Zaslow: About two months ago, I sent a message to a woman on JDate whom I was very interested in. I didn’t hear back from her, and in the meantime I began dating an ex-girlfriend again. Recently, the woman from JDate e-mailed me, expressing interest and apologizing. She explained that she could not…
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Life Help! My Adult Daughter’s a Schnorrer
Dear Mr. Zaslow: I raised three daughters in a nice middle-class, haimish home. My youngest daugher is a real schnorrer — a cheapskate. She flaunts her frugality. Her home furnishings are “dumpster décor,” and sometimes, she’ll go to Costco and eat her lunch by sampling food served by the various demonstrators. Recently she told me,…
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