Israel Joshua Singer (

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

: ישראל יהושע זינגער ; November 30, 1893,

Biłgoraj Biłgoraj (, ''Bilgoray'', ) is a town in south-eastern Poland with 25,838 inhabitants as of December 2021. Since 1999 it has been situated in Lublin Voivodeship; it was previously located in Zamość Voivodeship (1975–1998). It is located sou ...

Congress Poland Congress Poland or Congress Kingdom of Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It was established w ...

— February 10, 1944 New York) was a Polish-Jewish novelist who wrote in Yiddish.

Biography

He was born Yisruel Yehoyshye Zinger, the son of Pinchas Mendl Zynger, a rabbi and author of rabbinic commentaries, and Bas Szewa Zylberman. He was the brother of the author

Isaac Bashevis Singer Isaac Bashevis Singer (; 1903 – July 24, 1991) was a Poland, Polish-born Jews, Jewish novelist, short-story writer, memoirist, essayist, and translator in the United States. Some of his works were adapted for the theater. He wrote and publish ...

and novelist Esther Kreitman. He married Genia Kupferstok. His eldest son, Yasha, died at 14 of pneumonia before the family's emigration to America. His younger son, Joseph Singer, was the translator for both his father's works and his uncle's, Isaac Bashevis Singer. Joseph, a painter and writer like his father, married June Flaum Singer, who went on to become a writer. They had four children: Sharon Salinger, Brett Singer, I.J. Singer and Valerie Singer. The three daughters followed in the family business and are also published poets and novelists. Singer contributed to the European Yiddish press from 1916. In 1919, he and his wife Genia went to

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

, where he found work on a newspaper, ''The New Times'', and was considered one of the "Kiev Writers". Then they moved to Moscow, where he published articles and stories. After two hard years, in 1921, they returned to Warsaw. In 1921, after

Abraham Cahan Abraham "Abe" Cahan (Yiddish: אַבֿרהם קאַהאַן; July 7, 1860 – August 31, 1951) was a Lithuanian-born American socialist newspaper editor, novelist, and politician. Cahan was one of the founders of ''The Forward'' (), an American Y ...

noticed his story ''Pearls'', Singer became a correspondent for the American Yiddish newspaper ''

The Forward ''The Forward'' (), formerly known as ''The Jewish Daily Forward'', is an American news media organization for a Jewish American audience. Founded in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily socialist newspaper, ''The New York Times'' reported that Set ...

''. His short story ''Liuk'' appeared in 1924, illuminating the ideological confusion of the Bolshevik Revolution. He wrote his first novel, ''Steel and Iron'', in 1927. In 1934 he emigrated to the United States to write for ''The Forward''. Eventually, Israel Joshua invited his younger brother, the future Nobel prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer, to the United States and engineered for him a job with ''The Forward''. "Had it not been for Joshua,

would have fired him", I. J. Singer's wife Genia later told I. B. Singer's son Israel Zamir. I. J. Singer died of a heart attack at age 50 at his home in New York City, at 258 Riverside Drive, on February 10, 1944.

Works

* ''Fun a velt vos iz nishto mer'' (English: '' Of a World That is No More'' (1946)). This was published posthumously, with an English translation published by Vanguard Press in 1971. * ''Shtol un Ayzn'' (1927); translated into English as '' Blood Harvest'' (1935) and as ''Steel and Iron'' (1969) * '' Nay Rusland'' (Eng: ''New Russia'') (1928) * '' Yoshe Kalb'' (1932). Translated as ''The Sinner'', Liveright Pub., NY (1933), and the same translation was published as ''Yoshe Kalb'' in 1937. In his introduction to the latter, I. B. Singer called ''The Sinner'' "an insipid title". * '' The Brothers Ashkenazi'' (1936) * ''Friling'' (1937) * ''East of Eden'' (originally titled ''Khaver Nachman'') published by Alfred A. Knopf (1939) * '' The Family Carnovsky'' (1969) (originally titled ''Di mishpokhe Karnovski'') (1943) * '' The River Breaks Up'', stories published by Alfred A. Knopf (1938); republished by Vanguard Press, NY (1966) * '' Dertseylungen'' (English: ''Stories''); published posthumously, 1949 In the introduction to ''A Treasury of Yiddish Stories'', Irving Howe and Eliezer Greenberg stated that Singer's books are organized "in a way that satisfies the usual Western expectations as to literary structure. His novels resemble the kind of family chronicle popular in Europe several decades ago hat is, the turn of the century.

References

Sources

* *

External links

Obituary
@ JTA
Free version in Yiddish of ''Fun A Welt Wos Iz Nishto Mer''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Singer, Israel Joshua 1893 births 1944 deaths American people of Polish-Jewish descent Jewish American dramatists and playwrights Jewish American novelists Yiddish-language dramatists and playwrights Yiddish-language journalists Yiddish-language novelists Yiddish-speaking people American male novelists American male dramatists and playwrights 20th-century American novelists 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American Jews American Ashkenazi Jews Polish emigrants to the United States People from Biłgoraj