Isaac Bashevis Singer

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Isaac Bashevis Singer (1988)

Isaac Bashevis Singer (also Isaak Baschewis Singer; Yiddish יצחק באַשעוויס זינגער; pseudonyms that he - next to Bashevis - temporarily used were Varshavsky or D. Segal; born November 21, 1902 in Leoncin , today in the powiat Nowodworski (Masovia) , Poland ; † July 24, 1991 in Surfside , Miami-Dade County , Florida ) was a Polish-American writer. As the only Yiddish writer to date , he received the in 1978Nobel Prize in Literature .

Life

Poland

Isaac Bashevis Singer was born as Icek Hersz Zynger in Leoncin as the son of the local rabbi Pinchos Menachem Zynger, probably on November 21, 1902. He himself stated July 14, 1904. The Singers had lived in Poland for many generations, and the men had been Hasidic rabbis for at least seven generations . One of Isaac Bashevis Singer's ancestors is said to have been a student of the legendary Baal Shem Tov . Isaac Bashevis Singer's mother Bathsheba Singer (nee Zylberman) came from the shtetl Biłgoraj near Lublin and was the daughter of a rabbi. Although the Singers were not incapable, for religious reasons, in a puritanical manner, any luxury and elements decorating the apartment such as paintings, statues, and carpets were foregone. Many worldly things, such as going to the theater or even enjoying the Jewish festival of Purim, were frowned upon in the Singer house because the father rejected them as vain and sinful trinkets. Isaac Bashevis Singer later said in an interview that neither he nor his brother wanted to become a rabbi. From his father's point of view, although he believes in God, he is an atheist because he does not believe in every little dogma and religious law that rabbis have built up from generation to generation. But he recognized early on that all these rules were not created by God, but by humans.

In 1907 the family moved to Radzymin , to the court of a Hasidic rabbi, where the father took up a job as an assistant to the rabbi. In 1908 the family moved to Kroiellna Street in the Jewish poor district of Warsaw , at that time the largest Jewish and Yiddish-speaking settlement in the world (in 1910 approx. 300,000, almost 40% of the 780,000 inhabitants, were Jews). Isaac received a traditional Jewish education, studying the Torah , Kabbalah, and other Jewish books. The catastrophic economic situation during the World War forced the family to separate in 1917 - Isaac's mother, Batsheva, moved with him and his younger brother Mosche to their hometown of Biłgoraj, where their brothers were rabbis in their successor, and where the adolescent Singer the traditional way of life of Polish Jews , which had remained unchanged there due to the peculiarities of the geographical and political situation, got to know firsthand (“I lived Jewish history”). His brother Mosche later perished in the Soviet Union around 1945 after he had been sent to southern Kazakhstan with his wife and mother.

In 1921 Singer returned to Warsaw to be trained as a rabbi at the progressive Orthodox Tachkemoni seminar. He dropped out after a year and moved to live with his parents in the provinces. However, due to the intervention of his older brother Israel Joschua Singer (1893-1944) - himself a well-known Yiddish author - he was able to return to Warsaw in 1923 as a proofreader for a modern Yiddish magazine, where he began to write himself. In addition, he mainly wrote literary reviews and translations. In 1932 he was involved as a co-founder of the literary magazine Globus . He already signed his second story - to distinguish himself from his older brother - with "Bashevis", without a first or last name. This name is the genitive of Yiddish "Ba (s) sheve" ( Bathsheba ), his mother's first name. He first used the full name "Isaac Bashevis Singer" in 1950 when his first translated work was published, the American version of the novel Die Familie Moschkat . As "Bashevis" he made a name for himself early on by repeatedly depicting and reworking the intense experience of his developmental years. Singer had just published his first novel, Satan in Goraj, in sequels in Globus magazine when his older brother, who was appointed to the editorial staff of the major Yiddish daily Forverts in New York in 1933, gave him the opportunity to travel to America in 1935. The move also meant the separation from his first wife Runia Pontsch and their son Israel Zamir (born 1929), who went to Moscow and then to Palestine . Father and son did not meet again until 1955.

USA

Singer settled in New York and after a long period of getting used to it - his autobiographical novel about this time was entitled Lost in America (published in 1981) - he became a prolific and recognized Yiddish author who published primarily in Forverts . In 1938 he first met Alma Wassermann, née Haimann (1907–1996), who, like so many others from Germany - in her case from Munich - had fled; the two married in 1940. In 1943 he received American citizenship .

The first of his 1950 novellas Die Familie Moschkat (The Family Moskat) was published in English. Here he told the story of the annihilation of Polish Jewry. Singer then achieved general fame with the American translation of his 1945 short story Gimpel der Narr by Saul Bellow , published in 1953 . The novel Der Zauberer von Lublin followed in 1957, Jacob the Servant in 1962 and The Manor in 1967 . The book The Estate , published by him in 1969 , formed the conclusion of the epic trilogy (The Family Moskat, The Manor and The Estate) in which the breakup of old families through social, financial and also human changes in the modern age is shown. In 1974 Isaac Singer received the National Book Award for his novel Enemies - The Story of a Love , in 1978 he was the only Yiddish writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature for his complete works :

"For his haunting narrative art, which, with its roots in a Polish-Jewish cultural tradition, brings universal human conditions to life"

- Justification from the award ceremony

Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote his novels and stories exclusively in Yiddish first and initially published them in sequels in Yiddish literary magazines and in Forverts, whereupon he revised and proofread some of them for the American version on which the other translations were based (he spoke of his "Second original"). In the early 1950s he consistently began translating his works into English. This step made him very well known internationally. I am often pleased , he said, what is wrong with Yiddish? And he replied: Doß is majn spoke. In the dosiker I spoke about wil win or farlirn.

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

Isaac Bashevis Singer died on July 24, 1991 in a nursing home in Surfside, Miami-Dade County.

Meaning - film adaptations

Singer's work stands in the field of tension between religion and modernity, mysticism and rational insight. Another characteristic is the deep connection with Jewish mysticism ( Kabbalah ), Talmudic ethics, tradition and folklore as well as a great scientific education and familiarity with philosophy - especially with Spinoza , Schopenhauer , Eduard von Hartmann and Otto Weininger . His most important literary role model was Knut Hamsun , whom he translated into Yiddish several times. Singer is at home in many literary styles and themes. In his works he moves freely from medieval to modern, from naturalism to the fantastic and from psychological descriptions to mystical narration. The protagonists of Singer's stories often live on the fringes of Jewish society: mentally disturbed people, criminals or prostitutes. Many of his stories are about sexuality and the sacred and their mutual relationship.

In 1974 a flat neighbor, Bruce Davidson , filmed Mr. Singer's Nightmare or Mrs. Pupkos Beard ( Mr. Singer's Nightmare or Mrs. Pupko's Beard ) as a half-hour mix of feature and documentary (screenplay and lead actor Isaac Bashevis Singer). In 1983, the short story Yentl, the Yeshiva Boy with Barbra Streisand in the lead role as Yentl was made into a film; However, Singer was very critical of the film. In 1986, Amran Nowak and Singer directed the documentary Isaac in America: A Journey with Isaac Bashevis Singer , which was nominated for an Oscar in 1987 for best documentary.

The template for the film Enemies - The Story of a Love was the 1989 novel of the same name; The director was Paul Mazursky . In 2007, the German director Jan Schütte combined three short stories from Singer into a feature film entitled Love Comes Lately with Otto Tausig in the lead role. This film was shown at several festivals and was released in April 2009 under the title See you later, Max! in German cinemas.

Awards

Works (selection)

Publication / time of origin known

  • Satan in Goraj (Der sotn in Goray; Sotn of Gorey), 1934, German 1957.
  • The Moschkat family. Roman (Di Mischpoche Moschkat / The Family Mushkat) 1950, German 1984. Forverts had printed the novel between November 1945 and May 1948. The 1950 edition by Verlag Alfred Knopf was shortened and the end was changed by the author.
  • Bullfinch the Fool and Other Tales. (Gimpl tam un other dertseylungen) 1957, German 1968.
  • Translator Christa Schuenke : Shadows over the Hudson. (Shadows on the Hudson, 1957) Hanser, Munich 2000
  • The Gentleman from Kraków . Full text, engl. As a play: The Ball , performed at the Yiddish Theater Dora Wasserman in 1988
  • The Kunznmacher fun Lublin. ( The Wizard of Lublin ). Roman, 1960, German 1967
  • The slave. Translated from Yiddish by the author and Cecil Hemley. Farrar, Straus and Cudahi, New York 1962
    • Jacob the servant. Roman 1962, German 1965, afterword Salcia Landmann . Rowohlt, Reinbek
  • Spinoza from Market Street. (The Spinoza of Market Street, 1962) German 1982, Insel-Bücherei 1023/1
  • Short Friday, 1962
    • Translated by Wolfgang von Einsied: Jentl , Erzählungen, dtv, Munich 2002 (1964).
  • Main Tatens Bes Din Schtub. 1966
  • Übers. Otto F. Best : My father the rabbi. Picture book of a childhood. Autobiographical stories 1904–1918. (Beth Din. In my father's court.) 1966, German 1971; New edition 2002
  • The estate. Novel. (The Manor) 1967, German 1967.
  • The Heritage. Novel. (The Estate) 1969, German 1981. - Second part of Das Landgut .
  • A Day of Pleasure: Stories of a Boy Growing Up in Warsaw. 1969.
  • A Friend of Kafka, and Other Stories. 1970
  • Elijah The Slave. 1970
  • Joseph and Koza: or the Sacrifice to the Vistula. 1970
  • Mayses fun butt oyvn. 1971
  • Enemies, a love story. 1972
    • Übers. Wulf Teichmann: Enemies, the story of a love . Hanser, Munich 1974
    • Theater editing: enemies . Directed by EA Yael Ronen , Maxim-Gorki-Theater 2016
  • A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories. 1974
    • The East Broadway Kabbalist. Stories. Hanser, Munich 1976
  • The bal-chuve. 1974
  • The shpigl and other dertseylungen. 1975
  • A Little Boy in Search of God. 1976
  • Passions. Stories from the new and old world. Stories, German 1977
  • Shosha. Roman 1978, German 1980
  • A Young Man in Search of Love. 1978
  • Old love. Stories of love. Stories (Old Love) 1979, German 1985
  • The realms of heaven. A story of the Baal Shem Tov. Narrative. (Reaches of Heaven. A Story of the Baal Shem Tov) 1980, German 1982
  • Lost in America: from the shtetl to the New World. Roman (Lost in America) 1981, German 1983, Yiddish from 1974.
  • The penitent. Roman (The Penitent) 1983, German 1987
  • Yentl the Yeshiva Boy. 1983 (template for the Streisand film)
  • Insane stories. Greno, Nördlingen 1986 The Other Library
  • I am a reader. Conversations with Richard Burgin. (Conversations with Isaac Bashevis Singer, Isaac Bashevis Singer & Richard Burgin) 1985, German 1988
  • Übers. Ellen Otten: The death of Methuselah and other stories of the happiness and unhappiness of the people. Stories (The Death of Methuselah and Other Stories) 1988, Carl Hanser, Munich 1992 ISBN 3-446-15220-2 ; again dtv, Munich 1997 ISBN 3-423-12312-5
  • The king of the fields. Novel about the early history of the Poles (The King of the Fields) 1988, German 1997.
  • The destruction of Kreshev. Short story, German 1990
  • A day of happiness and other stories of love. Stories, German 1990
  • Max, the rascal. Roman (Scum) 1991, German 1995
  • The visa. Roman (The Certificate) 1992, German 1998
  • Meshugge. Roman (Meshugah) 1994, German 1998
  • Jarmy and Keila. Roman, German 2019, Jüdischer Verlag im Suhrkamp Verlag , ISBN 9783633542963

Children's books (selection)

  • Massel & Schlamassel and other children's stories. Stories (Mazel and Shlimazel) 1966, German 1988.
  • Zlateh the goat and other stories. Stories; Illustrations by Maurice Sendak (Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories), 1966, German: Rolf Inhauser 1968.
  • The Fearsome Inn. 1967.
  • When Schlemihl went to Warsaw (When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw and Other Stories). 1968.
  • Utzel and his Daughter, Poverty. 1968.
  • Elijah the slave. 1970.
  • Joseph and Koza. 1970.
  • The Emperor of China who turned everything upside down (The Topsy-Turvy Emperor of China). 1971, German 1993.
  • The Wicked City. 1972.
  • The fools of Chelm and its history (The Fools of Chelm and Their History) in 1973, German 1997th
  • Noah's Dove (Why Noah Chose the Dove). 1974
  • A Tale of Three Wishes. 1975.
  • Naftali the Storyteller and His Horse, Sus: And Other Stories. 1976.
  • The Golem (The Golem). 1982, English 1969.
  • Stories for Children. 1986.

Bibliographies

  • David Neal Miller: Bibliography of Isaac Bashevis Singer, 1924-1949. Peter Lang, New York et al. 1984, ISBN 0-8204-0002-5 (English).
  • Roberta Saltzman: Isaac Bashevis Singer. A Bibliography of His Works in Yiddisch and English, 1960-1991. The Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland, and London 2002.

Literature, sources (selection)

  • Bashevis Singer, Isaac, in: Encyclopaedia Judaica , 1971, Volume 4, Col. 293-296.
  • 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 that 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 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 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 B. 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 .
  • Joseph Sherman: Singer, Isaac Bashevis. In: The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe . Yale, New Haven / London 2008, ISBN 978-0-300-11903-9 , pp. 1752-1754; online .

aftermath

  • Marei Obladen : Radio play Isaac B. Singer: "A childhood in Warsaw 1,2". Production RIAS Berlin 1981, director: Jörg Jannings , Deutsche Grammophon 1992.
  • Michael Chaim Langer, Joachim Günther: Women, madness and demons. A musical-literary revue. (About Singer, as a master of Jewish humor. She presents a selection of his literary treasure, in scenes and as 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 2007.
  • Johannes Steck (actor) and Kolsimcha (klezmer music): Massel and Schlamassel. A musical reading of the story by Isaac B. Singer. Uccello, ISBN 978-3-937337-32-6 .
  • The Family Singer. Exhibition on the life and work of the Israeli siblings Joshua Singer (1893–1944), Esther Singer (1891–1954) and Isaac Bashevis Singer, as central figures in Yiddish literature. YIVO - Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, Manhattan, NY (until May 9, 2008)

Web links

Commons : Isaac Bashevis Singer  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Remarks

  1. ↑ See DNB for further variants .
  2. ↑ Pinchos Menachem Zynger, however, was not a state-recognized rabbi.
  3. ↑ Stephen Tree: Isaac Bashevis Singer. Munich 2004, pp. 18-19. Singer had his official birthday, July 14, 1904, entered on a birth certificate in his youth and made himself younger in order to avoid military service. The date was later carried over to the official American naturalization papers and he did not want to change it so as not to jeopardize his citizenship. Only in old age, after the Nobel Prize, did his part make careful corrections.
  4. ↑ Florence Noiville: Isaac B. Singer - A Life. 2nd Ed. Northwestern University Press, Evanstone, Illinois 2008, ISBN 978-0810124820 , pp. 6-9.
  5. ^ Isaac Bashevis Singer and Richard Burgin: Conversations with Isaac Bashevis Singer. Doubleday, New York 1985, ISBN 9780385179997 , p. 12.
  6. ↑ Florence Noiville: Isaac B. Singer - A Life. 2nd ed. Northwestern University Press, Evantonse, Illinois 2008, ISBN 978-0810124820 , p. 13.
  7. ^ Nobel Lecture of December 8, 1978.
  8. ↑ Banquet Speech, December 10, 1978.
  9. ↑ Stephen Tree: Isaac Bashevis Singer. Munich 2004, p. 68.
  10. ^ Encyclopaedia Judaica , Volume XVIII (San – Sol), 2nd ed. Thomson Gale, Detroit 2007, p. 635
  11. ↑ https://www.babelio.com/livres/Singer-Le-Magicien-de-Lublin/49728
  12. ^ Members: Isaac Bashevis Singer. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed April 26, 2019 (with information on awards).
  13. ^ American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Book of Members ( PDF ). Retrieved April 21, 2016.
  14. ↑ Continuation story that Singer published in the literary magazine Globus , which he founded in 1935 together with his friend, the Yiddish poet Aaron Zeitlin: The story takes place at the time of the Chmielnicky uprising and tells of a Jewish city that many years after Uprising still lives in the greatest fear of the Cossacks and hopes for the Messiah who will soon arrive . The demonic Gedalja seduces people by proclaiming Shabbtai Zvi , whom he proclaims as Messiah, and by exploiting the visions of Rechele, who is plagued by demons. According to the theory that before the arrival of the Messiah the world must completely sink into sin, he drives people to increasingly desolate acts until he finally apostatizes after the death of his prophetess, a young girl whom he abuses as his prophetess . The novel can be read as a moving portrayal of an innocence destroyed by the power of circumstances and evil (Recheles), which in its gloom and sharpness anticipates the impending catastrophe of Polish Jewry.
  15. ↑ Large-scale family novel that helped Singer to break through with the Yiddish-American audience when it was published (first sequel in November 1945). Using the example of several families and a love story between a poor yeshiva student and a rich heiress, the increasingly troubled and hopeless situation of the Jews of Warsaw from the end of the 19th century until the city was taken by the Germans is described.
  16. ↑ The lonely: Isaac Basshevis Singer in New York. FAZ , May 29, 2013, p. N3
  17. ↑ The anthology with which he made a name for himself among the English-speaking American audience. As a play in 1982 at the Yiddish Theater Dora Wasserman
  18. ↑ A novel about European-Jewish refugees in New York after 1945, whose lives, despite their economic and social success, are clearly shaped by the Shoah . In German and in Braille relocated
  19. ↑ Like Satan in Goroaj , the novel is set after the greatest catastrophe in Polish Jewry up to the time of National Socialism , the Cossack uprisings of 1648; Written after the Shoah , it plays among traumatized and shocked people who have to cope with incomprehensible events: The hero, Jakob, escapes the persecution of the Jews and works as a quasi serf in a Polish village, where he falls in love with a young Christian woman. When he returned to the Jewish community, he took her with him and passed her off as a mute Jew - which was discovered when she cried out in her mother tongue at the birth of her child. She dies; Jacob can save himself to Jerusalem with his son; he returns and is buried next to her by the Jewish community, which honors both of them as "righteous" people. - According to Alma Singer, the couple's “favorite book”.
  20. ↑ Stories that take place in a somewhat vague Jewish presence: including Yentl , about a young woman who has to dress up as a man in order to pursue her religious studies. As a play in 1979 in the Yiddish Theater Dora Wasserman
  21. ↑ Stories from Singer's childhood, compiled from newspaper columns, the literary potential of which was realized late. According to Singer's request, the 2002 edition is based on the English version of the book Beth Din, first written in Yiddish and translated into English by Elaine Gottlieb with the help of Cecil Hemley . As a play in 1974 in the Yiddish Theater Dora Wasserman
  22. ^ First part of a great family novel about Poles and Jews from approx. 1870–1909.
  23. ↑ Comprehensive, literary life report of the future writer, who finally finds himself “lost in America”
  24. ↑ Life report of a man who flees the temptations of modernity into the supposed security of an orthodox life in Jerusalem. With an epilogue by Singer, in which he emphasizes that such a way out is out of the question for him personally.
  25. ↑ German 1969 a. D. T. Massel und Schlamassel or The milk of a lioness.
  26. ^ Website of the Center for Jewish History.
personal data
SURNAME Singer, Isaac Bashevis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Singer, Isaak Baschewis; יצחק בשביס-זינגר (Yiddish); Zynger, Icek Hersz (maiden name); Varshavsky (pseudonym); Segal, D. (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish-American writer and winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize for Literature
BIRTH DATE around November 21, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Leoncin , Poland
DATE OF DEATH July 24, 1991
Place of death Surfside , Miami-Dade County, Florida