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
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Life Bintel Brief: Yitz and Blu Greenberg Peer Across the Denominational Divide
Dear Rabbi and Rebbetzin, I am a convert to Judaism and have been living a “Conservadox” life for about 15 years. My conversion was traditional, with all of the rites, including hatafot dam brit, immersion and questioning before a beit din [rabbinic court] after a period of about two years of study. However, the rabbi…
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Life Bintel Brief: Blu and Yitz Greenberg Say Don’t ‘Get’ Revenge on Your Ex
Dear Blu and Yitz, On lawyer’s advice, my (ex-)wife refuses to accept a get (yet the divorce is all her doing), and for over 10 years refuses me regular visits with our children. (The visits are irregular, essentially when she feels like it, on her lawyer’s advice.) My question is, when she decides she wants…
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Life Bintel Brief: Blu and Yitz Greenberg Say ‘Think Twice’ Before Wishing the Kids Had Married Non-Jews
Dear Blu and Yitz, All of my daughters married Jewish boys. But sometimes I think it might have been better had two of them married non-Jewish boys who would at least have been supportive of their wives trying to bring some form of Judaism into their homes and into the lives of their children. One…
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Life Bintel Brief: Yitz and Blu Have Advice for You
This month the Bintel Brief features advice from a Jewish power couple: Blu and Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg. Blu was the founding president of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance. She is the author of “On Women & Judaism” and “How To Run A Traditional Jewish Household,” among other books. Her husband’s no slouch either. Yitz…
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Life Bintel Brief: The Mamele Suggests a Cure for the Working Mom Blues
Dear Mamele, I’m going through a difficult time. My husband is underemployed, and my job is very demanding and consuming. The hardest part is not seeing my kids as much as I’d like. And when stay-home mothers from my largely affluent suburb want to make small talk about their recent trip to Turks and Caicos…
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Life Bintel Brief: The Mamele Says ‘Roasting Is Your Friend’
Dear Mamele, I feel completely inadequate when it comes to holiday celebrations. I’m not such a slouch in the kitchen, but hosting a big holiday meal or Seder for family and friends is something that seems downright terrifying. It’s easy to prepare and bring a homemade dish or a cake to someone else’s home, but…
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Life Bintel Brief: The Mamele Advises an Alaskan Fisherman Living in Hasidic Borough Park
Dear Mamele, Hi. I’m a goy from Alaska who just moved to Borough Park. Before I moved here, I may have been the only logger/fisherman who read Isaac Singer, Martin Buber, Rabbi Nachman, Potok, Ansky and others. Now, I guess I expected my Hasidic neighbors to be Gimpels, thieves, louts, dipsomaniacs or kabbalistic meshugene. But…
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Life Bintel Brief: The Mamele Helps With the Housework
Dear Mamele, This is a complicated question, so I will ask it at length. What is an equitable division of housework? Does it entail doing exactly one-half of the housework, even if a large part of that housework seems to one to be fetishistic make-work, of no use or interest to anyone but the person…
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