Dear Mendl, Dear Reyzl

Roberta Newman

Dr. Roberta Newman is an independent scholar, writer, and researcher. She is Director of Digital Initiatives at YIVO. She was the senior producer of the DVD-ROM edition of Heritage: Civilization and the Jews (Thirteen-WNET) and the Illustrations Editor of The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (2008). Her fiction writing explores Jewish history and Jewish identity. Along with Alice Nakhimovsky, she published a book on brivnshtelers, Dear Mendl, Dear Reyzl: Yiddish Letter Manuals from Russia and America (Indiana University Press), the first book written about this little-known genre of literature.