Isaac Bashevis Singer
Isaac Bashevis Singer was one of the most beloved Yiddish writers ever published and the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978.
Saul Bellow once called him “the last of the important Yiddish writers in America” noting that Singer “is considered by many to be the most gifted.”
Over the course of his career, Singer published 18 novels, several children’s books, memoirs and essays. But, he’s best-known for his short stories. Singer’s first short story collection to appear in English, Gimpel The Fool, was published in 1957.
He was born in 1902 in a village called Leoncin near Warsaw, Poland, which was then part of the Russian Empire. His father was a Hasidic rabbi and his mother, Bathsheva, was the daughter of the rabbi of Bilgoraj, a town in southeastern Poland.
The exact date of his birth is unknown but Singer told his official biographer, Paul Kresh, and his secretary, Dvorah Telushkin, that his birthday was November 2, 1902. At one time, he also said he was born on July 14, 1904 but some think he made up that date in his youth in order to appear younger and thereby avoid the draft.
A few years after his birth, the family moved to Radzymin, a town located about 16 miles outside Warsaw. Radzymin is often cited as Singer’s birthplace but several biographies note that the actual birthplace was Leoncin.
He came from rabbinic stock. His father had been a rabbi and his mother was the daughter of a rabbi. Singer had two older siblings who also became writers: Isaac Joshua Singer and Esther Kreitman.
In 1907, the family moved to the court of the Rabbi of Radzymin where his father served as the head of the yeshiva. The following year, the yeshiva building burned down and the Singer family moved again, this time to a poor, Yiddish-speaking section of Warsaw.
In 1921, Singer entered the Tachkemoni Rabbinical Seminary but he quickly decided he did not want to become a rabbi. He later ended up working as a proofreader for Literarische Bleter where his brother served as the editor.
With the Nazi threat growing in Europe, Singer opted to leave Poland for the United States in 1935. His common-law wife and son went to Moscow and then Palestine but the family would meet again in 1955.
In the meantime, Singer settled in New York and went to work for The Forward newspaper. He ultimately became the best-known writer ever to work for The Forward.
During his writing career, Singer published 18 novels, 14 children’s books, a number of essays, memoirs and several volumes of short stories.
Indeed, he’s best-known for his short stories. One of most beloved of these is Gimpel The Fool, which became the title story for his first collection of short stories.
Other well-known books include Satan in Goray, The Magician of Lublin, The Spinoza of Market Street, and The Slave.
Singer won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978. In accepting the award, he declared that “Yiddish has not yet said its last word. It contains treasures that have not been revealed to the eyes of the world. It was the tongue of martyrs and saints, of dreamers and Cabalists – rich in humor and in memories that mankind may never forget.”
Singer is also known for being a vegetarian the last 35 years of his life. He was once asked if he became a vegetarian for health reasons. To this Singer replied: “I did it for the health of the chickens.”
His story Yentl became a major motion picture starring Barbra Streisand in 1983. Also, Singer’s novel Enemies, A Love Story was adopted for the big screen in 1989.
Following a series of strokes, Singer died in Surfside, Florida on July 24, 1991.
Articles about Isaac Bashevis Singer:
December 16, 2010
Alfred Kazin journals to be published this spring
A previously unpublished collection of journals written by Alfred Kazin will come out this spring, according to Richard M. Cook, the author of the recent Kazin biography, Alfred Kazin: A Biography. Writing in The American Scholar, Cook says that since … Continue reading
December 14, 2010
Yiddish literature making a comeback?
Noting the recent publication of three significant Yiddish books, the Forward had an interesting read last week about whether the literature of the mamaloshon might be the ‘next big thing.’ This past fall, the Yale University Press published The Glatstein … Continue reading
October 28, 2010
Interviews with Roth, Bellow, Singer, more
If you’ve got a few hours to spare in order to get lost online, you could do worse than to wander around in The Paris Review’s newly public Interviews section. The first issue under the new editor, Lorin Stein, just … Continue reading
October 25, 2010
Yiddish writers: Four of the best
I’ve read quite a few pieces lately on the renaissance of Yiddish literature. This death-defying language has been revived in London at the Jewish Museum, in Beersheva at Ben Gurion University’s center for Yiddish studies and in the United States … Continue reading
September 29, 2008
Isaac Bashevis Singer quotes
Isaac Bashevis Singer quotes tell the story of a man steeped in Yiddish and Hebrew literature as well as Talmud, Midrash and Torah. Enjoy reading them if you want to use quotes in your next project or you just want … Continue reading
December 20, 2007
Reading and re-reading Isaac Bashevis Singer
I don’t have any timely reason for talking about Isaac Bashevis Singer today except for the fact that my copy of “Gimpel the Fool: Stories,” is due back at the library before the stroke of midnight. Of course, as the … Continue reading
November 22, 2007
Two (somewhat) literary takes on Annapolis
I typically stay away from politics on this blog but I found two well written essays that I enjoyed reading and I believe they balance each other out politically. Even though they come from differing political perspectives, both share a … Continue reading