Dear Mendl, Dear Reyzl: Yiddish Letter Manuals from Russia and America

2. From the Pages of Brivnshtelers

66 MODERNITY AND MOBILITY Introduction The twin themes of mobility and modernity are ubiquitous in brivnshtelers published at the turn of the twentieth century. Young men and some young women travel to the big city for education or work, encounter its temptations, and suffer from loneliness and homesickness for their friends and family. While the city is presented in both negative and positive terms—it is a threat to the maintenance of Jewish tradition, but also the locus of economic and educational opportunity—the shtetl is not a preferredalternative.Thosewhohavemovedawayfromsmalltownsmay have a nostalgic memory or two, but they are quick to point out the lack of vitality and opportunity that drove them to leave home. An early manifestation of modern thinking appears in a satirical letter from the earliest brivnshteler published in the Russian Empire. Letters 1–2 (“A German Jew Writes to a Polish Jew Asking for the Hand of His Daughter for His Son”) mock Polish Jews for being backward. The Polish father rejects a good match for his daughter with a German Jew because of superstition (the in-laws have the same first names) and his fear about his daughter having to dress in more modern clothing. Another sign of modernity appears in the many letters about education . As purveyors of education for an audience that was pursuing it at various levels, brivnshtelers were obsessed with the subject. The father seeking broader educational opportunities for his son is a model of enlightened behavior and close to a stock figure in brivnshtelers. Equally typicalishisacknowledgmentthatif hissonistoacquireaseculareducat wo From the Pages of Brivnshtelers 67 From the Pages of Brivnshtelers tion, he is going to have to leave home. In Letter 3 (“I’ve Heard That There Are Schools for Boys in Berdichev”), from 1910, a boy’s mother is blamed for keeping him from educational opportunities outside the shtetl. But now that she is dead, the father will send him to Berdichev, where there is a real school. The sense of being trapped in the shtetl and the longing for secular knowledge are other common themes. Paperna’s 1889 Russian-Hebrew manual Mikhtov meshulesh [Mikhtav meshulash] includes a letter from a young man to his close friend, who has gone off to “the capital city of P.” Aftersometimecomplainingthathisfriendhasn’twritten,andingeneral following the conventions of sentimental friendship that are a feature of the Haskalah as well as Russian Enlightenment culture, he gets to his point.1 The friend knows what their small town is like, and he knows that therearenoteachers,whichmakeitimpossibletolearnanythingserious: “So I ask you to be my advisor and help me make up for lost time; tell me what books would, if I apply myself assiduously, take the place of a teacher. If you can do this I will be forever grateful.”2 Changes in thinking can be incremental within a family—the case with the enlightened father seeking opportunities for his son—or they can be radical, encompassing a group of friends of the same age. For Jewish men, the transition to modern thinking could be very complicated. One of the most vivid accounts of this transition—radical in its visible, physical manifestations, conservative in its retention of deeply rooted religious behaviors—is from a Russian-language story by S. An-ski, in which one young man urges another to cut off his peyes (sidelocks) as a grand gesture of secularization: “Listen!” Eyzerman turned to Tsiporin. “You’ve got scissors. Do a mitzvah, cut off my peyes.” “What’s the hurry? You’ll have time,” Mirkin cut in with some annoyance, remembering the conversation with Hillel. “I’m ashamed to appear in front of people this way.” “Go on, go on! Let’s cut off his peyes,” said Uler. “He begged me to do it before . Go on, sit down. We’ll take you to the bosom of the Haskalah.” “A true maskil would let people tear out each individual hair,” said Hillel modestly and very seriously. “By that feat, they would earn a place in freethinkers ’ heaven.” Everybody laughed, but Eyzerman looked at Hillel in disbelief. He thought at first Hillel was serious. 68 Dear Mendl, Dear Reyzl Uler armed himself with scissors. “How do you want it? Right to the skin? So that not a trace remains?” “To the very skin. So that not even a memory remains.” “We have to say a blessing. We can’t without a blessing,” said Uler. “Get it done...