Alice Nakhimovsky is Professor of Russian and Jewish Studies at Colgate University, where she directs the program in Russian and Eurasian Studies. She has written extensively on Russian-Jewish literature and everyday life and served on the editorial board of The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe.Roberta Newman is an independent scholar living in New York City. She is Director of Digital Initiatives at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and was Illustrations Editor and Director of Archival Research for The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe.

Reproductions of brivnshtelers form the core of the book and comprise the majority of the text, providing a ground-level window into a largely obscured past.(Publishers Weekly) ...[C]overs a neglected aspect of Jewish popular culture and deserves a wide readership. For all serious readers of Yiddish and immigrant Jewish culture and customs.(Library Journal) ...These manuals provide us with a lens to better understand Jewish life at the time, as they mirror many of the challenges and concerns that Russian and American Jews were experiencing, and as they resonate with the emotional registers found in Yiddish literature and letters more generally.(Jewish Book Council) Dear Mendl, Dear Reyzl delivers more than one would expect because it goes beyond a linguistic study of letter-writing manuals and explicates their genre and social function. It is appropriate for students of Jewish life generally and Yiddishists of any age.(Slavic Review) A great deal of history is covered in this book as the authors discuss the social and economic stressesthat Jews faced on both sides of the ocean throughout this time period. Each section begins with anexplanation of a particular issue, but the real delight of the book is in reading the letters themselves. . . . Highly Recommended.(AJL Reviews)

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsTranslation and Romanization1. The World of BrivnshtelersEncountering modernityThe brivnshteler and traditional educationThe brivnshteler and the history of model lettersYiddish language, Yiddish publishing, and the brivnshtelerThe brivnshteler and literatureWhat makes the brivnshteler Jewish?2. From the Pages of BrivnshtelersModernity and mobilityParents and children: RussiaParents and children: AmericaCourtship and marriage: RussiaCourtship and marriage: AmericaBusinessJudaism and Jewish IdentityImagining America3. Beyond LettersBibliographyIndex