Isaac Bashevis Singer

Isaac Bashevis Singer (also: Isaac Baschewis Singer; Yiddish יצחק באַשעוויס זינגער; pseudonyms, he - alongside Bashevis - temporarily used, were Varshavsky or D. Segal, born November 21, 1902 in Leoncin, now in the powiat Nowodworski ( Mazovia ), Poland, † 24 July 1991 Surfside, Miami -Dade County, Florida ) was a polish- American Yiddish writer. As the first and only Yiddish writer, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978.

• 4.1 notes / time of origin is known
• 4.2 Without year or not determined
• 4.3 Children's books (selection)
• 4.4 bibliographies

Life

Time in Poland

Isaac Bashevis Singer was probably born as Icek Hersz Zynger in Leoncin as a son of the Rabbi Pinchos Menachem Zynger on 21 November 1902. He himself was at 14 July 1904.

1907 the family moved to Radzymin, to the court of a Hasidic rabbi in 1908 at the Krochmalna Street in the Jewish slums of Warsaw, at that time the largest Jewish and Yiddish-speaking settlement in the world (1910 were about 300,000, almost 40 % of the 780,000 inhabitants, Jews ). The disastrous economic situation during World War II forced the family to split up in 1917 - Isaac's mother, Batsheva, moved with him and his younger brother Moshe to her hometown Biłgoraj near Lublin, where her brothers officiated as rabbi in the footsteps of his father, and where the adolescent Singer the shtetl, the traditional way of life of Polish Jews who had survived there as a result of the peculiarities of geographical and political situation unchanged, got to know from my own experience ( "I lived Jewish history ").

1921 Singer returned to Warsaw to be trained on progressive Orthodox Tachkemoni seminar for rabbis. He broke the training after one year and went to his parents in the province. He could, however, due to the intervention of his older brother Israel Joshua Singer (1893-1944) - his hand, a well-known Yiddish author - 1923 return as a proofreader for a modern Yiddish journal to Warsaw, where he began to write itself. Already he signed his second narrative - to distinguish themselves from the older brother - with " Bashevis " without first or last name. The name goes back to the first name of his mother Bathsheba. For the full name of " Isaac Bashevis Singer" he used for the first time in 1950 with the appearance of his first translated work, the American version of the novel " The Moschkat family". As " Bashevis " he rose early one name by literary represented the intense experience of his formative years several times and aufarbeitete. Singer had just a first novel, " Satan in Goraj " published in installments, as it 's older brother, who was appointed in 1933 in the editorial staff of the great Yiddish newspaper " Forverts " ( " Jewish Daily Forward" ) to New York, 1935 opportunity to enter America gave. The move also meant separation from his first wife Runia Pontsch and from their son, Israel Zamir (born 1929), the to Moscow and then went to Palestine (father and son met again in 1955 ).

Time in America

Singer settled in New York down, and after prolonged acclimatization difficulties - his autobiographical novel about this period is entitled " Lost in America " - he was a prolific and renowned Yiddish author who published mainly in the " Forverts ". In 1938 he first met Alma Wassermann, born Haimann ( 1907-1996 ) who, like so many from Germany - in their case from Munich - had fled; the two married in 1940. 1943 he became an American citizen.

General became famous for Singer first published in 1953 with the American translation of his 1945 resulting short story " Gimpel the Fool " by Saul Bellow. In 1974 he was awarded the National Book Award for his novel "enemies - a love story " award, 1978, the first and only Yiddish writer for his oeuvre the Nobel Prize for Literature:

"For his vivid storytelling that brings to life with their roots in a Polish-Jewish cultural tradition universal conditions of human beings "

Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote his novels and short stories in Yiddish and first published it in installments in Yiddish literary journals and in the " Forverts ," to which he in part selection for the American version, which was the other translations based on revised and proofread ( he spoke of his " second original ").

In the last 35 years of his life, Singer was a staunch vegetarian who often took up this theme in his stories.

Meaning - films

Singers work is the tension between religion and modernity, mysticism and rational insight. But is also characterized by the deep attachment to the Jewish mysticism ( Kabbalah ), the Talmudic ethics, tradition and folklore, as well as a great science education and familiarity with the philosophy - especially with Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Eduard von Hartmann and Otto Weininger. His most important literary model was Knut Hamsun, which he has repeatedly translated into Yiddish.

1974 filmed an apartment neighbor, Bruce Davidson, "Mr. Singer 's Nightmare or Mrs. Pupkos Beard " ( Mr. Singer's Nightmare or Mrs. Pupkos beard) as a half-hour mix of feature and documentary (writer and actor Isaac Bashevis Singer). In 1983, the short story " Yentl, the Yeshiva Boy" was filmed with Barbra Streisand in the lead role as Yentl; the film was Singer though very critical. 1986 turned Amran Nowak with the documentation Singer Isaac in America: A Journey with Isaac Bashevis Singer, which was nominated for a 1987 Oscar for Best Documentary.

The template for a movie made ​​in 1989, the novel "Enemies " ( enemies ); Director was Paul Mazursky. 2007 Association of the German director Jan Schütte three short stories Singers into a feature film titled Love Comes Lately with Otto Tausig in the lead role. This film was shown at several festivals and came in April 2009 Until later, Max under the title! in the German cinemas.

Awards

In 1969, Singer for " Zlateh, the goat " the German Youth Literature Award, 1981, the Buber- Rosenzweig Medal as well as (among many other honors ) in 1984 an honorary doctorate from Ben- Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba, Israel. As a Yiddish writer, he received the 1978 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Works / editions (selection)

Appearance / emergence time known

• Satan in Goraj. ( The SOTN in Goray; SOTN of Gorey ), 1934, German 1957
• The Moschkat family. Roman ( Tue Mischpoche Moschkat / The Family Mushkat ) 1950 German 1984
• Gimpel the Fool and Other Stories. ( Gimpl tam un other dertseylungen ) 1957 German 1968
• Shadows on the Hudson. Novel 1957.
• The Kunz maker fun Lublin. ( The Magician of Lublin, novel), 1960, German 1967
• Jacob the servant. Novel in 1962, German in 1965, with an afterword by Salcia compatriot. Rowohlt, Reinbek English: The slave; translated from the Yiddish by the author and Cecil Hemley. Farrar, Straus and Cudahi, New York City 1962.

• German: A childhood in Warsaw. Otto Maier Verlag, Ravensburg 1981, ISBN 3-473-35058-3.

Without year or not determined

• The fatalist. stories
• The Son from America. story
• The witch. story
• The little shoemaker.
• A telephone call on Yom Kippur. ( in: The Image )
• Yentl. ( Three stories from Gimpel the Fool. Yentl the Talmud Student Short Friday and blood)

Children's books (selection)

• Massel & mess and other children's stories. Narratives ( Mazel and Shlimazel ) 1966 German 1988
• Zlateh the goat and other stories. Narratives ( Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories ), 1966, German 1968.
• The Fearsome Inn. In 1967.
• As Schlemihl went to Warsaw (When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw and Other Stories ), 1968.
• Elijah the Slave. In 1970.
• Joseph and Koza. In 1970.
• The Emperor of China, who turned everything upside down. (The Topsy Turvy - Emperor of China. ) 1971, German 1993.
• The Wicked City. In 1972.
• The Fools of Chelm and their history. (The Fools of Chelm and Their History. ) 1973 German 1997.
• Noah's dove. ( Why Noah Chose the Dove. ) 1974
• A Tale of Three Wishes. In 1975.
• Naftali the Storyteller and His Horse, Sus: And Other Stories. In 1976.
• The Golem. ( The Golem. ) 1982, English 1969.
• Stories for Children. In 1986.

Bibliographies

• David Neal Miller: Bibliography of Isaac Bashevis Singer, 1924-1949. Peter Lang, New York et al 1984.
• Roberta Saltzman: Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Bibliography of His Works in Yiddish and English, 1960-1991. The Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland, and London 2002.

Literature / sources (selection)

• Paul Kresh: Isaac Bashevis Singer. The Magician of West 86th Street. New York 1979.
• Dorothea Straus: Under the Canopy. The story of a friendship with Isaac Bashevis Singer did chronicles a reawakening of Jewish identity. New York 1982.
• Lester Goran: The Bright Streets of Surfside. The Memoir of a Friendship with Isaac Bashevis Singer. Kent, Ohio in 1994.
• Israel Zamir: Journey to My Father, Isaac Bashevis Singer. New York 1995.
• Janet Hadda: Isaac Bashevis Singer. A Life. New York 1997.
• Dvorah Telushkin: Master of Dreams. A Memoir of Isaac Bashevis Singer. New York 1997.
• Agata Tuszyńska: Lost Landscapes. In Search of Isaac Bashevis Singer and the Jews of Poland. Translator's Madeline. G. Levine, William Morrow, New York City 1998, ISBN 0-688-12214-0.
• Seth Wolitz (ed.): The Hidden Isaac Bashevis Singer. University of Texas Press, 2002.
• Dietmar Pertsch: Isaac Bashevis Singer's stories about the extinguished world of Polish Jewry. Krämer, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-89622-062-4.
• Stephen Tree: Isaac Bashevis Singer. dtv, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-423-24415-1.

Aftermath

• Marei Obladen: Radio plays Isaac B. Singer: " A childhood in Warsaw 1.2 " production RIAS Berlin 1981 Director: Jörg Jannings, German Grammophon 1992.
• Michael Chaim Langer and Joachim Günther: women, madness and demons. A musical- literary revue. On Singer, as a champion of Jewish humor. It presents a selection of his literary treasures, in scenes as a music, Yiddish Swing. This music means: Jewish evergreens from New York in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as songs by Georg Kreisler. Performance for Jewish Culture Days in the Rhineland in 2007.
• John Steck ( actor) and Kolsimcha ( klezmer ): Massel and mess. A musical reading of the story by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Uccello, ISBN 978-3-937337-32-6.
• The Family Singer. Exhibition on the life and work of the brothers Israel Joshua Singer (1893-1944), Esther Singer (1891-1954) and Isaac Bashevis Singer, as the central figures of Yiddish literature. YIVO - Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, Manhattan, NY (until 9 May 2008)