Title: A Bintel Brief – Love and Longing in Old New York
Author/Illustrator: Liana Finck
Year of Publication: 2014
Publisher: HarperCollins
Why I Borrowed It/Bought It: I borrowed A Bintel Brief from my local public library because I am falling down a rabbit hole of Yiddish-related topics. This book is in graphic novel format and I had zero idea what it was about when I placed it on hold. It’s so fascinating that now I’ll be falling down another Yiddishkeit rabbit hole…The Forward.
Two Sentence Summary: The author/illustrator sets adaptations of real letters (Bintel Briefs) that were submitted in the early 1900s to The Forward, a large Yiddish newspaper in New York City, to art. The narrator has a conversation with Abraham Cahan, editor of The Forward, that sets these letters (and the responses) in quite a contemporary context. Highly recommended.
You may know Liana Finck from: her website.
“In the main branch of the New York Public Library, I found early issues of The Forward preserved on microfilm.”
A Bintel Brief – Love and Longing in Old New York