1: Letter to the editor of the Jewish Daily Forward, 1941.

1: Letter to the editor of the Jewish Daily Forward, 1941.

This letter, published in Yiddish in the advice column of the Forward (Forverts), is a real-life representation of the dilemma presented in Paley’s fictional story. For more than eighty years, Jewish immigrants turned to this column for help navigating the social, cultural, and ethical challenges of living in America.

Suggested activity: Read the letter aloud. Have students write their own response to the “Reader from the Bronx.”

Source: Isaac Metzker, ed., A Bintel Brief: Sixty Years of Letters from the Lower East Side to the Jewish Daily Forward (New York: Schocken Books, 1971), 168-169.