A Bintel Brief : Sixty Years of

Rating:
Summary: BINTEL BRIEF NOT ALL IT'S CRACKED UP TO BE...
Review: I was curious about The Forward Yiddish newspaper having the equivalent of Dear Abby back to the beginning of the 20th century on the lower east side. It seemed to be advice to the lovelorn, but covered much more earthy territory, stories of work drudgery and lost dreams, of hard work and success, but serious family problems. At first Metzger gave what I thought was sound, common sense advice in family problems and cultural difficulties, but then I started noticing what we now consider attitudes of racial intolerance, especially when a Jewish man fell in love with a Gentile girl, a 'schicksa.' The advice was to break off the relationship immediately as they come from different worlds and the marriage would never work. They gave this advice to a young man in love who asked for the editor's advice since his parents promised him they would commit suicide if he married her! I don't like to hear stuff like that, but it's true that was the common 'wisdom' at the time and I suppose we should know that that was the sad truth of the times, as late as the 50's such advice came from the so-called wise editor(s) of The Daily Forward.