A Bintel Brief

The Eastern European Jews had many troubles before immigrating to America. Jews are well known for overcoming hardships that are thrown at them. In A Bintel Brief, they weren't exactly overcoming genocide, but they were having many hardships that would be tough for anyone including love, missing family members, poverty, and different religious problems. Many Jews had nothing but the clothes on their backs when they arrived in America. Few had money to bring along with them, all though some did have money. The majority of the people or families that came to America had to start with nothing, and work from the ground up. Some of the people were working for a measly two dollars a week. The Eastern European Jews at that time weren't working for themselves most of the time. Most of the time they had whole families to feed, or they had prior obligations they had to fulfill. Many of the Jewish people's wages were put towards a ship fare, to get their family out of Eastern Europe and into the free America. The majority of the Jews were working in shops all over. Many of the Jews were persecuted. They weren't allowed to have certain jobs. One instance in the book a mother wrote in for her son, who desperately wanted to be a chemist. The mother was outraged, because many people were saying that they wouldn't hire a Jewish chemist. A lot of the immigrated Jews were finding partners that weren't of the same religion. The book mentions Gentile and Jewish relationships a countless number of times. Many of the submitters found their relationship with a gentile was not working, that they started out in love, but the other is teaching the wrong things to their children. On the other hand, many Jews were becoming freethinkers.

The "Bintel Brief" itself gave an amazing amount of aid in the adjustment for Jews. All people need is hope, and when there's hope you can do anything. These people poured their hearts out into their letters, and confided in the "Bintel Brief" for answers. The "Bintel Brief" in return would give sound advice, and would give hope that everything would turn out alright. Because there were few Jewish newspapers, they had nothing else to look forward too, or read. Many of them, just coming from Europe, still did not know English. These people could only read the Yiddish articles. Many of the problems the submitters were facing were faced by many other Jews in the same position.

I believe the advice given by the newspaper was very sound advice, because they gave advice that would help the most people. The paper had a Utilitarian sort of view behind it. They gave advice that would appeal to the most people that would be good for all the people involved. Granted most of the advice was common sense, still I think the Jews just needed to hear or read it for themselves, to go along with the hope thing. They just needed someone to tell them that they can get through their hardship without troubles, and for the most part it worked. Some of the letters included stories of lost family, or fathers thrown in jail because they didn't support their families.