Romance in the Shtetl

[Helen Winkler <winklerh...>]

As an offshoot of the romanticizing of the shtetl theme, here's some info on 
romance in shtetl that you can read about on the Jewish Genealogy web site. The 
section is called Love Letters from the Ghetto.  Below is the introduction and 
some of the letters are online at the site:
http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/bolekhov/loveletters.htm
* These letters were published in several printed editions by H. M. Elendman. 
The author perished as a martyr (Kidesh Hashem) in the year 1942 in Bolekhov

>From the author to the Khosn-Kale (bride and groom)

Dear Khosn-Kale (Bride and Groom),

I know how very much you're worrying , when you come home from the engagement 
and you need to write a mazel-tov letter. Particularly, the first letter from 
the groom to the bride and the bride to the groom -- who burns so strong and 
the hearts flutter one to the other -- are difficult for you.

The teacher who taught you tashrak tsfe's [code system] and "grizlikh" writing 
forgot to teach you about writing such letters. Usually you get the best town 
writers and for a sheyne matbeye (a nice sum of money) he writes the letters 
for you. In order that you should not need this anymore, I - who for many years 
have been the town maskil [representative of the Enlightenment Movement], and I 
already wrote a lot a lot of such letters, and the couples live barukh hashem 
(thank G-d) besholem ubeshalve (in peace and tranquility) (they even have fine 
children already) - we enjoy such various types of little letters, each person 
to express according to his walk of life and his fantasy.

There even exists already little books, which are called "Letter-Writer." But 
these are old fashioned; secondly not to the topic, but my letters are up to 
date and very much to the point.

I hope that the kindly bride and groom will buy this book for themselves, and 
then have great enjoyment and will only be thankful of me.

I wish luck to you and greet you, although we don't know each other.

>From me your friend,

Sh. E.

Helen Winkler
winklerh (at) hotmail(dot)com
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