Israel Joshua Singer

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Israel Joschua Singer, 1938

Israel Joschua Singer (also: Israel Joshua, Israel Jehoschua, Israel Josua Singer, Yiddish ישראל יהושע זינגער Jißroel Joschue Singer; born November 30, 1893 in Biłgoraj , Russian Empire ; died February 10, 1944 in New York ) was a Polish American yiddish writing prose writer and translator.

Life

He was the son of a Hasidic rabbi family from the Jewish town of Biłgoraj in what is now Poland . His father was Pinchas Mendl Zinger and his mother Batsheva Zylberman. Israel Joschua Singer was the older brother and literary mentor of Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer . Both sister's was Esther Kreitman (Hinde Ester Singer Kreytman), born in 1891 , who also left a remarkable work as a writer.

Until he was 17, Israel studied Joshua Singer at the great yeshiva and then turned to literary work. From 1916 he worked as a collaborator (initially as a proofreader, translator and occasional writer) of various Yiddish newspapers and revues in Warsaw (Literary Bleter, Choliastra) and Kiev (Di naje zajt) and quickly won over novels with high literary quality.

In 1921 he became an employee of the People's Newspaper and the New Yorker Vorwärts ( The Forward ). On behalf of the latter, he toured Poland, particularly Galicia, in 1924.

In 1934 Singer emigrated to the United States , where he died of thrombosis at the age of only 50 . Some of his prose works were performed in dramatized versions at the Yiddish Art Theater in New York, which Maurice Schwartz provided , which has increased his notoriety and fame considerably.

His memoir From a World That Is No More was published posthumously in 1946 .

In the introduction to the anthology A Treasury of Yiddish Stories , Irving Howe and Eliezer Greenberg write that Singer's works are written in a way “that meets the usual Western expectations of literary structure (s). His novels resemble the kind of family chronicles popular in Europe a few decades ago [that is, around 1900] ”.

Works / editions (selection)

  • Choliaßtre, 1922 (collector's book, jointly edited with Perez Markisch )
  • Earthache. Drama in three pictures, Warsaw 1922
  • Clay pits, 1922 (לײמגרובן)
  • Perln, 1923 ("Perlen", short stories)
  • Lyuk, 1924
  • Af najer [resp. stranger ] Erd, 1925 (אױף פֿרעמדער ערד)
  • Schtol un ajsn, 1927 (שטאָל און אײַזן; his first novel)
  • Naj Russia. Pictures fun a Rajs, 1928 (נײַ-רוסלאַנד: בילדער פֿון אַ ריײַזע)
  • Josche Kalb, 1932
  • Di brider Ashkenazi, 1937 (די ברידער אשכנזי; novel)
  • Friling, 1937
  • The river breaks up, 1938
  • Chawer Nachman. 1938 (חבר נחמן; novel), 1939 under the title East of Eden
  • Di Karnowßki mischpoche. 1943 (די משפחה קאַרנאָװסקי; drama); German: The Karnovski family. Second edition by Paul Zsolnay Verlag, 1997, ISBN 3-55-204858-8 .
  • Fun a world woß is nischto mer. 1946 (פֿון אַ װעלט װאָס איז נישטאָ מער); German: From a world that is no more. (Memoirs) Carl Hanser, 1991, ISBN 3-44-615317-9 .
  • Wili, 1948 (װילי)
  • Derzejlungen, 1949 (דערציילונגען; "Stories")

Literature / sources

  • Perez Markisch in: Book World. 1922.
  • Anita Norich: Singer, Israel Joshua. In: The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Easter Europe, Volume 2. Yale University Press, New Haven / London 2008, pp. 1754-1756 ( online ).
  • John F. Oppenheimer (Red.) And a .: Lexicon of Judaism. 2nd Edition. Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Gütersloh u. a. 1971, ISBN 3-570-05964-2 .
  • Salman Reisen : Singer, Yissroel-Joschue. In: Lekßikon fun der najer Yidischer literatur, Volume 3. New York 1960, pp. 640–646.
  • Günter Stemberger : History of Jewish Literature. Beck, Munich 1977.
  • Singer, Israel Joshua. In: Encyclopaedia Judaica , Volume 14. Keter, Jerusalem and Macmillan, New York 1971, Col. 1611 f.
  • Salomon Wininger : Singer, Israel Joschua. In: Great Jewish National Biography, Volume V. Orient, Cernăuți 19 ??.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. The Lexicon of Judaism incorrectly states October 30, 1893 as the date of birth .
  2. Irving Howe, Eliezer Greenberg: A treasury of Yiddish stories. Viking Press, New York 1954, p. 84: “[…] that satisfies the usual Western expectations as to literary structure. His novels resemble the kind of family chronicle popular in Europe several decades ago. "
  3. Short story about the chaotic clash of different ideologies during the October Revolution.
  4. (יאָשע קאַלב; Hasidic drama); German first edition 1967; Another German edition: Josche Kalb, Frankfurt am Main 2001. This was Singer's first great success. The (later dramatized) novel, still written in Poland, is based on the frequent subject of the decline of a Hasidic dynasty. Singer himself was very negative about Hasidism, despite its origins, and almost only sees the bad in it. The life and experience of the hero, who is torn between tradition, religion, instinct and love, takes place in front of this slide: The young God-seeker Nachum, Rabbi Melech's new son-in-law, will be joined by Malka, Melech's new wife (the fourth), seduces and tries with all means to fight against the passion that is awakening in him, over which he almost loses his mind, flees, from now on leads a life of penance under the name "Josche" and is called "the calf" because of his silence. In the meantime forced by external circumstances to live with a feeble-minded girl, after many years he returned to the Hasidic court, where he was soon venerated as a saint and visited by pilgrims until he was identified as "Josche Kalb" and brought before a rabbinical court , whereupon he goes hiking again ...
  5. ^ German: The Aschkenasi Brothers, Berlin 2005–. A family saga set in Lodz that spans three generations and the development of Lodz from a sleepy village at the beginning of the 19th century. to a respected textile center and its renewed decline after the Russian Revolution, which closed the previous hinterland to him; the heroes of the play are the Jewish twin brothers Simche and Jakob, who are completely different by nature, who fight for supremacy in the textile trade and are represented in the most blatant colors as a representative of the brutal business world.
  6. In it, the increasingly pessimistic Singer expresses his disappointment with communism: The idealistic revolutionary Nachman comes into increasing contradiction with the ruling powers because of his sense of justice and is ultimately deported to the West.
  7. The story of three generations in their migration from Poland via Germany to America aims to show that Jews never have a chance of survival in a non-Jewish environment, but only in their own state.