WRITINGS ON YIDDISH AND YIDDISHKAYT

Stromberg offers newly translated essays by Nobel laurate Isaac Bashevis Singer that shed light on the Polish American author’s postwar transformation.

Singer’s novels, short stories, and essays not only garnered him the Nobel Prize for Literature, but also two National Book Awards, among a host of other accolades. He’s a leading figure in 20th century Yiddish literature, and his major works have been published in English translations, but not all of his mid-20th century musings. In this, the second volume of select Yiddish essays by Singer, translator and editor Stromberg focuses on a pivotal era of the writer’s intellectual development, from 1946 to 1955. Although The Family Moskat (1950) and other novels have driven much of the scholarly understanding of Singer during this period, Stromberg suggests that the writer’s lesser-known essays, published in the Yiddish newspaper Forverts under the pseudonym Yitskhok Varshavski, reveal a “total transformation,” as he questioned “everything he knew” about his Jewish faith and identity. This theme of “spiritual reappraisal” is seen throughout these essays, which blend an orthodox understanding of Jewish history and faith with frustration regarding contemporary Jewish movements and organizations, particularly among American Jews. Singer’s 1951 essay “What Is the Foundation of Jewish Culture?,” for example, highlights the growing number of people who “say they just happen to be Jewish” and “have the sense that being Jewish obliges them to nothing.” Another essay on Yiddish literature notes the dearth of writings on immigration, socialism, and other topics central to Jewish diasporic histories. “When Actions Achieve Nothing” offers a powerful reflection on the tension between religious systems that prioritize “the thought itself” and the more secularist prioritization of taking action.

Stromberg, a literary scholar who’s served as editor of the Isaac Bashevis Singer Literary Trust, has an intimate familiarity with the nuances of Singer’s idiosyncratic beliefs. The book’s introductory essay offers an astute survey of the author’s postwar changes, contextualizing this period by not only considering his seven decades of writing, but also by putting them in historical context. Singer’s inner tumult, Stromberg argues, paralleled the chaos of events in the world around him, from the Cold War and McCarthyism to the formation of Israel and post-Holocaust Zionism. Similarly, short editorial introductions place each essay in specific contexts within Singer’s life, such as his travels to Europe and Israel, and emphasizes their relevancy to 21st-century debates within Jewish communities. The translations themselves are accessible and admirably reflect Singer’s iconic style and vision of Jewish idealism. At the heart of this vision, reflected in both the author’s essays and Stromberg’s analysis, is the Yiddish language. Critiques of contemporary Jewish movements aside, Singer viewed Yiddish as both practically and spiritually important, hoping to “ensure not only that it will be possible to learn Yiddish but that people will want to learn it so they can gain access to its treasures.” By offering a glimpse of Singer’s own literary treasures, this volume usefully adds to readers’ understanding of a 20th-century icon.

A well-crafted anthology of musings from a giant of Jewish literature.