Matylda did know how to write and read in Yiddish; in fact, later in life she maintained a daily correspondence in Yiddish. She came from Boryslaw. By “German in Hebrew characters,” I meant that the language is more “German” than Yiddish. In fact, there is a continuum linking Yiddish and “German”–a version of it, such as used in this part of Galicia (i.e. not the Standard German of, say, Vienna). Just as there are many Englishes (Australian, American, Canadian, etc.), so there were, and are, many Germans.
I should add, in response to Ingrid’s previous comment, that the Austro-Hungarian military forbade soldiers from writing in any script other than “Latin.” So Jacob had to write in German when using the military mail system, but nonetheless he mostly used German when using the civilian postal system. One can conclude that in his multilingual milieu, distinctions were almost meaningless. Later in life, he wrote theological commentaries in Hebrew and his memoirs in Yiddish.

maybe Matylda didn’t know how to write/ read Yiddish script? As girls were not sent to cheder? And 2 more points (this is a hobby horse of mine too) – how is ‘German in Hebrew characters’ distinguished from Yiddish? And where did she come from in Poland? As in Western Poland German was more likely to have been a lingua franca – i.e. under the Austro Hungarian empire.

You are right: Yiddish was the family language. There was no censorship involved. Most Jewish soldiers in the Austro-Hungarian army wrote in German–my source doesn’t explain why, other than it was the lingua franca of the A-H Empire. Matylda received a card from a young cousin whose German shows signs of schooling, whereas most of the German intermixes Yiddish, as indeed most of the supposedly Yiddish cards are either actually German in Hebrew characters or Yiddish influenced by German, sometimes to such an extent that it could be labeled “dayschmerish” (daytsch=deutsch). Matylda appears to have attended a state school conducted in Polish, in which German would have been a subject; she had to leave after two years to take care of the babies that her mother kept delivering, most of whom died. Her young women correspondents used Polish almost as much as German. Pious Orthodox Jews didn’t see women’s education as important, so they didn’t mind sending girls to Polish public schools–tbe more girls enrolled, the fewer places for boys, who then could go unimpeded to Yiddish-language religious schools.Only one man of the now 104 cards wrote in Polish. The reason there are 104 rather than 99 is that five had migrated, somehow, from Oakland CA to Brooklyn NY. I am now incorporating them in the book. Carol