Customer Reviews (2)

A Poignant Photo-Filled Book of Jewish Life in pre-WWII Poland
The many pictures of this book, generally dating from the period 1860-1920, hearken back to a simpler time. They make it obvious that, not only were Poland's Jews generally unassimilated, but that they essentially lived in a world of their own. [The reader, beholding the poverty of the Jews, should realize that most Poles were even poorer.] A hierarchy existed within the Jewish community: "Manual workers were generally looked upon with condescension, but some professions were held to be lower than others." (p. 12).

This work includes many definitions of Jewish terms. For instance, a latke is a potato pancake, and a cheder is a school for children. Contrary to misconceptions, Poland's Jews had not generally been forcibly ghettoized: "Except for two towns, where the Christian clergy succeeded in establishing closed and locked ghettos (Lwow and in the Krakow suburb of Kazimierz), the Jews lived in the shtetlach and in special sections in the cities." (p. 8).

Shulman realizes the fact that prejudices between Poles and Jews went both ways, and that a fundamental disconnect had long existed between the two peoples. He describes the marketplace as follows: "Here the peasants of the neighboring villages came to sell their products, buy urban products from the Jews, and use the services of the Jewish artisans. In the course of centuries this contact was seldom of lasting duration or of profound value. The relationship usually remained on the level of mutual distrust. To the Jew, the non-Jew was the symbol of raw instinct, of physical power and primitive reflexes. To the peasant, the Jew represented slyness, brains, and, most of all, religious heresy...The peasant saw a Jew praying, wrapped in an exotic shawl, wearing a little black box on his forehead and arm; he heard strange words muttered in a dark language. This unknown created the usual fear and hatred." (p. 15).

The Zydokomuna (bolshevized Judaism) is commonly misportrayed as something limited to the tiny Communist Party, or even something that represented a repudiation of Judaism. In contrast, Shulman recognizes its broad-based following, as well as the fact that it was, in essence, a secularized mutation of conventional Jewish thinking. He writes: "While studying the teachings of Marx and Engels, Lassale and Medem, the Jewish poor in the shtetl saw how smoothly the new teachings fitted into the words of the ancient prophets...Many of the young Bundists from the crowded, poor streets of the shtetl, educated on the Talmud, didn't actually have such a long way to go. Later, when the Bund became a powerful party with its own candidates for the Polish parliament and municipal bodies, thousands of religious Jews gave their votes to those `godless socialists.' They were not frightened of the sharp slogans, for they sounded familiar. They had heard them from the prophets." (pp. 25-26).[However, poverty alone doesn't explain the appeal of Communism. Polish peasants generally lived in abject poverty under an unjust holdover quasi-feudal system, yet their support for Communism had been virtually nonexistent.]

Finally, Shulman touches on Poland's Jewish community just before the Holocaust: "Between the two world wars Jewish life went through a period of amazing renaissance in independent Poland, a period never experienced before except perhaps in Spain. Never before was the cultural life so rich...for the first time Jewish political parties became a power in the political constellation of the country." (p. 27). Whereas the books read by parents tended to be religious ones, those read by the youth were quite different: "The new books were DAS KAPITAL of Marx, FIELDS, FACTORIES, AND WORKSHOPS by Piotr Alekseyevich Kropotkin, ALTNEULAND by Theodor Herzl, and even WHAT IS TO BE DONE? by Lenin. (p. 27).

Photographic history of the shtetl Jews
The events of centuries of persecution and forced migrations led to a concentration of Jews in Eastern Europe in the years before World War II. To maintain a distinct culture, they established communities known as "shtetls" which were generally self-sufficient enclaves. This book is a collection of photographs of members of those Jewish communities, largely as they went about their daily lives.
The members of this community were very class conscious, there was a distinct hierarchy of occupations, and with the highest being that of a scholar. Woman were second class citizens, one of the daily prayers of the men gave thanks to God that they were not born a woman. One of the most interesting facts is that these communities did not require a police force. The social restrictions were so strong that the community leaders were able to deal with almost all-social deviance.
Since time and tragic world events have combined to destroy the shtetl communities in Eastern Europe, this is an important historical record of how the Jews of Eastern Europe lived. We see them at work, at leisure, in their homes, but very rarely at play. Their lives were full, and you can see their strong survival instincts in these photographs.
... Read more

Product Description
Shosha is a hauntingly lyrical love story set in Jewish Warsaw on the eve of its annihilation. Aaron Greidinger, an aspiring Yiddish writer and the son of a distinguished Hasidic rabbi, struggles to be true to his art when faced with the chance at riches and a passport to America.But as he and the rest of the Writers' Club wait in horror for Nazi Germany to invade Poland, Aaron rediscovers Shosha, his childhood love-still living on Krochmalna Street, still mysteriously childlike herself-who has been waiting for him all these years.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

Powerful and tragic
I had read almost all of Singer but never this one. In his many chronicles of the Jews of Old Poland, Singer has brought all their pungent energies to life - the dedication to Torah study and observance, along with superstition, magic, demons, angels, food, love, sex, marital infidelity, even a fascination with communism. But he has mostly stayed away from the reality which ended that rich world; the Holocaust. Shosha is different. For the first time Singer wraps his narrative around the certainty that Hitler will invade Poland and destroy these people. Their various reactions - fatalism, Messianism, denial - are realistic and terribly sad. There is no theme of resistance; the Jews of Poland perceived little control over their destiny. The near suicidal depression of many of the characters is deeply upsetting to read. It was not until the founding of Israel that Jewish energy turned from helplessness to an assertive struggle for life. Singer was clearly swept up in this real life drama as he wrote Shosha, to the point of losing or purposely letting drift the plot thread as personal lives are taken over by a global tragedy.

The thread of the story is the narrator's love and devotion to the mentally challenged girl Shosha, to the point of marrying and protecting her and giving up his dissolute love affairs with sophisticated women. Indeed the author is twice offered escape to a safe America and twice rejects it in order to care for Shosha. The mystery throughout the book is why the protagonist does this; otherwise he is a very selfish man. My reading is that this love story is Singer's personal response to the Holocaust. The girl Shosha stands for Singer's bond with the Jewish people in their innocence and inability to defend themselves. Here is a man who no longer believes in G-d but nevertheless sacrifices himself to protect this innocence and purity, to make a gesture. It is a very moving story. It ends with an epilogue in Israel, with yet another kind of crazy life, but a new pride. Singer's final word: We are still waiting for the answers.

This book was published in the year Singer won the Nobel Prize and shows why his work will long be remembered.

A great book; Singer is a great authors
I've read most of Singer's literature and would rate this book towards the top of my list.I do feel that the theme of his novels has a similar tone.Personally, I think that Singer is one of the better authors out there.I would recommend someone reading Enemies, a Love Story if you enjoyed this book.

want to know about a great book?
Shosha is a great book by one of the leading authors of the 20th century. It is a beutiful love story with a difference.

The Excitement of "Shosha"
The main character, Aaron Greidinger, is a writer, an intellectual, interested in a simple girl, Shosha Schuldiener, from his childhood.He's interested in many women--sexually, too--which occasions wonder how Hasidic or Orthodox Jews can admire the author."You'll give her a few weeks of happiness, and then you'll abandon her", says girlfriend Betty Slomin about Aaron's interest in Shosha (84).This appeared accurate at that juncture.Look at the list.He has been having a long affair with the Communist Dora, a heavy woman.He has been sexually active with Celia, the wife of his friend Haiml and the girlfriend of Morris Feitelzohn.He is sexual and going around with Betty Slomin, the wife of Sam Dreiman, as she helps him with his playwriting.He is also making sexual advances toward the maid for his apartment, Tekla.And while all of this is transpiring, he is considering taking up again with his childhood girlfriend, Shosha.Singer's story, written in the late 1970s, is about a writer coping with sexual desires while writing a play.Singer probably designed this aspect of his character more for amusement than for reflecting any actual persons, including himself.

Greidinger moved from his childhood home to a second home during his adolescence to areas away from there, circling in and around Warsaw and the Yiddish writers around Warsaw.For 60 pages we watch a religious youth evolve into a secular writer and member of the Jewish intelligentsia, all without any help from the simple girl-woman Shosha.It's as difficult for us as it is for Betty Slomin, the wife of that affluent American, to fathom how he will develop a passion--and a commitment to--one woman at all, much less one simple, basic-looking woman, the woman for whom this whole novel is named.Subsequently, we find that he did, somehow.Somehow we are to believe that.He directly, artlessly informs her of his devotion.It is an aloof devotion for, despite all the exploratory discussion by this novelists' various intellectual characters, this character of his, this prominent writer, cannot ever seem to reach words to tell Shosha what it is he admires about her, what are her attractive qualities.

In fact, the writer remains as aloof toward her as he is toward the central questions vexing the people of his time.He appears more like a moderator in the intellectual discourse of his social milieu, and somewhat less than a concerned participant.

Aaron Greidinger, laconic, is mostly a neutral presence to the people about him, whom he, in fact, makes speak, for Greidinger is clearly just the author Singer, at an earlier time.So, Singer himself is neutral, for example, during the Dr. Feitelzohn and Mark Elbinger discussion of theology (142-145) when Greidinger says "I was not in the mood to take part in any discussions and I went over to the window."He is making the conversants there speak, and speak volumes, while he appears to not even move his lips, a silent listener, a ventriloquist.This subtle presence by the author characterizes almost the whole novel.In perhaps no other first-person narrated novel is the writer present as an indifferent listener, writing the dialogue of the other characters through an apparent ventriloquism.

The other characters are no dummies."Strangely, Morris Feitelzohn could speak with ardor about the wisdom found in certain Cabbalist and Hasidic books.In his own fashion, he loved the pious Jew and admired his faith and power to resist temptation. He once said to me, `I love the Jews even though I cannot stand them.No evolution could have created them.For me they are the only proof of Gd's existence.'" (19)But Singer is not sure how and whether to accept them; he is more fascinated with them and performing the obligation of recording them for posterity.

Feitelzohn possesses his two opposite sentiments regarding the Jews as if they are the only group about whom he could feel this way.Well, didn't he ever hear of the Amish, the Protestant American evangelists, even the devout Moslem?On the basis of irony, any of those could be proof that Gd exists, no?Perhaps his statement is about him, for he could be read as saying, "For me, they are the only proof of Gd's existence", which renders his statement a little trivial.

Aaron Greidinger's play is not respected by the theatre cast and crew.In the hands of producer Sam Dreiman, an American businessman, and his self-preoccupied girlfriend Betty Slonim, with her constant remarks and criticisms, it is subjected to constant revisions, as well as additions by various performers, and then additions by the actors union demanding more performers, and then by the theatre owner himself.(Ch. 6)

The story of the production reminds Greidinger of the tale of a village taken possession by madness, in which roles have been switched.An idiot is released from an institution and rendered a university professor, and the university's professors are floor sweepers, and so forth (112).

Social critics in the Jewish newspapers during the runup to the Hitler invasion of Poland reject any play other than plays providing reflection on the crisis, as distractions.What, they asked, does a medieval girl, the main character in the play, "The Ludmir Maiden", doubly possessed, by the dybbuks of a whore and a musician, have in relation to contemporary problems?

The play is examined in a rehearsal, resulting in rejection by its own producer, who calls it a "crazy farce for insane cabbalists".He doesn't realize that the farce quality resulted from all the kaleidoscopic alterations contributed by the various performers, his own girlfriend, and he himself.

Greidinger follows up this explanation with a retraction.(Ch. 7, Sect. I) It is he who is to blame for the play's failure.He could have worked on it.He does not suggest how he could have coped with all the revisions others made.It is not an intimate revelation of his inner intentions, which Jesus and his followers might seek from repentants.He admits to committing sins of lethargy and distraction, without more.He has failed to carry out the mitvah of writing a play, as if it had been assigned to him by the Jewish Gd, and describing what he was doing all those months instead is all that seems necessary to him to tell the story.Instead of "working on the play", he did this and that.He went with Betty Slonim to museums and to "silly American movies", from which there was nothing to learn.He spent his free time with Shosha, and falling onto the bed with Tekla.But whether he could have done anything to counter the willful interference of all those who were determined to leave their imprimatur on "The Maiden of Ludmir" is, he feels, not worth addressing.He doesn't even let us readers know what he would have done, although he strenuously argues he would have done it.This disingenuous list of his sins in an afterword is politic and deferential, to make him appear humble, likeable.We enjoy the description of his distractions.We like someone who owns up to his responsibilities.But if we think about it, he isn't credible.

Singer supposes it's his attitude that we readers will remember, his appearance of humility, as we skim lightly over his expression of regret. After all, the soul is not its specific memories.So, why should we readers remember these specificities?In speaking about the soul, as distinct from the mortal body, Dr. Feitelzohn notes that if memories of lives are washed away, on the one hand, the soul that survives is not "the same", with which his conversant concurs, which, like much else in Judaic theology, is essentialist philosophy.(144) The question is posed, in the effort to reach an answer, What essence survives paring away of the memories?(It must be noted that the difficulties to this line of inquiry consist of its terminology.)

If the philosophy in "Shosha" is vague, the characters are crystal clear.As the characters are founded on real personas known to Singer, readers always know who is talking, even without attributions, because of their immensely different positions in his world.Thus, while Greidinger has several women friends, one is the wife of a playwright and highly critical and intellectual about art, the second is a Communist deeply immersed in political ideology and cynicism (Dora), one is so simple she was kicked out of elementary school (Shosha), and another is a Gentile Polish housemaid bent on politeness, gratitude for the zlotys, and emotional support.Singer's own Greidinger main-character writer is subdued.Few inner psychological elaborations to him mean he's also known by his words and actions; we wonder as much about the man thinking and speaking in all scenes as about his colleagues.There's no chance of confusing him with the writers, like Feitelzohn, in his commnunity.If Feitelzohn is mystical, Greidinger is straightly secular.If Dora is ideological, Greidinger is cynical and convinced that no political system will work and all is doomed.Hence, great drama attends any meeting of minds.Readers are at the edges of their seats attentive to what the one would say and how the other would reply.Their actions and wordsare logical deductions from the essential characters their creator gave them.What are they doing together in one room? is the question that the dialogue is designed to answer.Thus, a vigorous minded Greidinger is often befriending then marrying/consoling a simple, forgetful, inept, innocent Shosha.Thus, the quiet, economizing, humble Greidinger is often befriending Betty Slonim, loud, assertive, boastful, explicative, and self-absorbed.Perhaps relationships based on discrepancies so great are possible only in art, a three-dimensional art that obtains a reality all its own.

Singer is content to present his outstanding characters in an exciting plot.A resolution to the tension of the plot is not necessary to him, apparently.Either that or he was just not "in the mood" to writing its resolution.Emigration from Poland to escape the threatening German war machine is an underlying theme throughout the earlier part of the novel, and emerges later in the foreground when Aaron Greidinger's play fails. The participants and observers of the play excitedly discuss the political situation there.The narrative has proceeded linearly.The reader expects the main characters to change their minds and organize an escape.However, the narrative suddenly leaps ahead in a giant leap . . . to flashback, as an epilogue (262), and the narrative is looking back from over a decade after, leaving the reader to wonder why there was all that dramatic tension in the first place.It is perhaps this disappointment of a drama unfulfilled that scuttles the entire enlightening and artistically original novel to the dark corners of our bookshelves and has precluded it from university course readings on European literature.

One of Singer's Best
Singer writes an odd and completely compelling love story. I read this book every couple of years and always find it fresh and interesting. It has elements of the history of the Jews in Warsaw before the war but it's really a story about truth - truth in regards to yourself and truth in regards to learning what is really important.

Shosa is such a simple and plain girl without any ambition. She is completely unimposing and naïve yet, somehow, against her humble persona you feel that all your `important' troubles are just not that important.

I also like how Singer sets up a love affair that examines the clashing worlds of modern Jewishness: on one side is a progressive liberal intelligencia almost drunk with new ideas while on the other side is an age-old culture that remains immoveable in its ancient wisdom.

Great book that should be read and reread. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Lost in America
An highly autobiografical book by Isaac B. Singer, it covers his way from the Stedl in Poland to the Steets of New York. This is not only a geographical journey, it is also a journey in time, from the dark ages to the 2oth century. Overall it is the story of the man who makes this tour de force. The world he sees is crumbling, the century old rules do not apply any more, nor do they offer protection. He becomes the traveller between the worlds, not at home any more in the tradition, not arrived yet in the new world. Never have I seen the ultimate fear of the intellectual expressed more clearly. The security of faith that once was available for oneself, and is still available for others, is out of reach. The thinking, and thus uprooted individual fears, and it is in expressing these fears, clearly and without hesitation, that the great achievement of this book lie within.
This is not a pleasant book, it is at times disturbing and depressive. But it is a true book, true to the doubts and despair of the searching soul. It offers the reader no easy way out. In our time of " happyness culture " where everybody is expected to ' have fun " every day, or at least to pretend, there should be more books like this. A most valuable read.

Lost in America
An highly autobiografical book by Isaac B. Singer, it covers his way from the Stedl in Poland to the Steets of New York. This is not only a geographical journey, it is also a journey in time, from the dark ages to the 2oth century. Overall it is the story of the man who makes this tour de force. The world he sees is crumbling, the century old rules do not apply any more, nor do they offer protection. He becomes the traveller between the worlds, not at home any more in the tradition, not arrived yet in the new world. Never have I seen the ultimate fear of the intellectual expressed more clearly. The security of faith that once was available for oneself, and is still available for others, is out of reach. The thinking, and thus uprooted individual fears, and it is in expressing these fears, clearly and without hesitation, that the great achievement of this book lie within.
This is not a pleasant book, it is at times disturbing and depressive. But it is a true book, true to the doubts and despair of the searching soul. It offers the reader no easy way out. However, in our time of " happyness culture " where everybody is expected to " have fun " every day, or at least to pretend, there should be more books like this. A most valuable read.

Awful.
Do you hate the world? Do you see the glass as 1/10 empty? Do you want to commit suicide? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then read this book. It is dark, depressing, utterly awful. I have never heard so much whining in a single book in my entire life. I give it 2 thumbs down. ... Read more

Product Description
Contains some well-known, and some lesser known stories by the Nobel Prize-winning Yiddish author. Stories include "Gimpel the Fool," "The Gentleman from Cracow," "The Wife Killer," "The Spinoza of Market Street," "The Black Wedding, " "A Tale of Two Liars," "Taibele and Her Demon," "Blood," "Esther Kreindel the Second," "The Fast," "Zeidlus the Pope," "I Place My Reliance on No Man," and several more. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

My favorite author; my favorite book . . .
Isaac Singer is a genius. You wonder what does aYiddish collection of short stories lose in the translation? These are wonderful stories with vivid characterizations, lush imagery, and plots rich with emotion and imagination. My favorite is Passions: a meditation on how man becomes obsessed with something--to the extent of transforming one's life--anything can become a passion. I've read this collection probably four times over the years, and the mark of a great story is how rich and complex it remains upon a second or third reading. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Tales of the world I never knew and never will
Thanks to my grandparents, who came to America in the first decade of the 20th century, I grew up and have had a good life.Thanks to my grandparents, I didn't become a piece of ash or a few tossed out bones inan Eastern European field at the age of 2.Wars are wars; they've occuredthroughout human history, but in most of them, whole civilizations didn'tdisappear.But the Eastern European Jewish world is gone forever.I mightbelong to the same gene pool, but compared to the characters in IsaacBashevis Singer's stories, I'm as American as apple pie.Irish-Americanscan discover their roots in Ireland, Chinese-Americans in China, and so on,but not me.My cultural roots are gone forever.The only way I can learnthem is through reading literature written by Singer, Shalom Aleichem,Isaac Babel and others who describe that vanished world.So, obviously, myinterest and pleasure in reading such wonderful tales as appear in THESEANCE and OTHER STORIES is all the more.Never mind my personal reasons. These amazing stories, by a Nobel Prize winner, will stay with you for along time.The strange, sad characters afflicted by poverty and by life,bring us face to face with common human personalities of all times andplaces, while also depicting the conditions and peculiar relationships ofJews in Poland too.Magic, religion, animals, thieves, rabbis,prostitutes, mystics, Holocaust survivors, Talmudic scholars, prisoners,books, butchers and shopkeepers crowd the pages.In each story, you findpathos and tragedy, happiness and satisfaction, tensions andtransformations.Two of the stories, "The Seance" and "The Letter Writer"must rank with the best stories I have ever read; none of the others arebad.If you have never read Singer, this is an excellent book to startwith.If you have, you know what I am talking about.This is the greatwriter at the top of his form.

Excellent - as good as it gets!
Isaac Bashevis Singer was no doubt one of the greatest short story writers - ever! The various collections in the end also earned him a very well deserved Nobel Prize for literature in 1978. Several of his stories werefirst published in magazines like The New Yorker, Encounter and Playboy.The first collection I read was Passions and Other Stories, whichimmediately made me realise what a master Isaac Bashevis Singer was. LaterI have read several of his novels and short stories, where especially thecollections Gimpel the Fool, Short Friday and The Seance are at least asgood as Passions. All a magnificent world of Isaac Bashevis Singer's saintsand sinners. Sad, funny, ironic, poignant and seeming to come from Singer'spen without any efforts. This is what good short stories is all about! ... Read more

Product Description
A Hebrew legend is "told with simplicity and spirit and illustrated with richly colored pictures reminiscent of medieval art."--Booklist. Full-color illustrations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A story that opens up a lot of questions
I read this book on the suggestion of a new acquaintance that said her favorite author was Isaac Bashevis Singer. Her only regret was that she could not read his books in Yiddish. She said to start reading him with his book "The Slave". In our library this was the only one I found that had "slave" in the title. I am sure she meant a different book but I was glad to start my acquaintance with Singer with this story. I too wish I could read it in Yiddish. What a great idea if they had it printed in both! The art work is curious but the story is curiouser. What does the story mean? What could be the point of this? There is a moral but I am not sure how to interpret it. That tells me the metanarratives must be very different than what I am familiar with. That encourages me to seek more.

Elijah the merciful
In this retelling of an ancient Jewish legend, Singer demonstrates all his skill.

In ancient times, in a distant land, there was a large city where many rich men lived. It had magnificent palaces, broad avenues, parks and gardens. In their midst wound a tiny street of broken down houses with narrow windows and doorways and roofs that leaked. In the simplest of these lived a holy man named Tobias with his wife Peninah and their three sons and two daughters. Tobias, a scribe, copied Torah scrolls to make his meager living. Tobias suddenly took ill and lost the use of his right hand. He could earn nothing. The family were hungry. His children had no shoes and could not attend school. But Tobias refused the help of others.

"Even while waiting for miracles, it is good to do something," his wife told him, and after borrowing a coat, sent him out to seek some luck. Tobias came upon a stranger, and mysteriously regained use of his hand to grasp the man's hand in greeting. The man introduced himself as Elijah and ordered Tobias to take him to the market and sell him as a slave. Tobias refused, calling himself Elijah's slave, but as Elijah was a messenger from God, Tobias had no choice but to heed him.

What do you suppose happened next? I cannot tell you. But the story honors Elijah's good name. Alyssa A. Lappen ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

awesome 70s miami beach photo album
i bought this book at my high school reunion -- miami beach high school.i remember photographer andy sweet, one of the two outstanding photographers.each page brings back a poignant memory -- high school, my grandparents, collins avenue, the beach, the smiling and the sad old people in the once fabulous, then shabby art deco hotels.a beautiful, sentimental, wonderful tribute to "the beach". ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Incredibly well written
I. Bashevis Singer, one of the best writters of all times shows us how he managed to survive from the dangers of nazi europe and come to the U.S. What he did after that, as a writter, we already know!

Interesting - certainly a good read
I've read several of Singer's books and I'm not at all disappointed with this one, as some other contributors seem to be.This book is certainly a good and very entertaining biographic novel, and I would strongly recommend it to anybody interested in I B Singer. The five stars go to his stories, where anybody attempting to read this author should start...

He is lost , and not only in America.....
This was my first work of Singer that I read. I chose him and this particular title given the fact of the Nobel fame, Polish - Jewish origin of the author and topic of the book- I wasinterested in his descriptions of "love", and (after spending only 7 years in US myself and coming from Poland ) retrospectives on " exile".

Unfrotunately in my eyes Singer fails -

As the writer- his style - especially in the first part delaing with the recollections of childhood and religious upbringing , home schooling- is very repetitious and boring.The remmainig of the book has a better plot and reads well.

As a historian/philosopher- it was good to see some objective remarks, yet he gives in a few times into fake thinking of Jewish superiority over "naive" Slavik nations or quoting false statements about "Pilsudski The fascists". He has courage to observe and point out repetitevely the stupidity of Jews getting self sloughtered by the Stalin's regime, yet he never bluntly calls them naive...He fails to go one step beyond "usual" in distinguishing ( or rather not distinguishing) between the Jew from a Gentile( "a Jew is beeing a Jew by a virtue of not beeing a Gentile).He fails to say : We are all the same....

As a person- when time after time describes relationships with woman that suspisciously always tell him at the begginning of the relationship about not wanting the marriage, children, and time and time again HE CHOSE TO BELIEVE THEM,and woman of his life change their mind . Is this "love" that proudly put on the cover of the book?
There is nothing that can defend him - no antisemitism of pre war Poland, no semi-depression and nihilism of his day to day life.
The respect is lost.No more Singer for me. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Yiddish language and its lost world
Singer opens the speech with a line in Yiddish. He stands before the Nobel Prize award audience as the representative of a civilization, a world, the world of the Yiddish speaking Jews of Eastern Europe which was destroyed by Evil. He speaks with his characteristic bluntness of his connection to the language he struggles to keep alive. He speaks of the Literature he loves and what is great in that Literature. He speaks of storytelling and character, and of the gift of entertaining others.
Here is some of what he has to say about the Yiddish he so loves.

"To me the Yiddish language and the conduct of those who spoke it are identical. One can find in the Yiddish tongue and in the Yiddish spirit expressions of pious joy, lust for life, longing for the Messiah, patience and deep appreciation of human individuality. There is a quiet humor in Yiddish and a gratitude for every day of life, every crumb of success, each encounter of love. The Yiddish mentality is not haughty. It does not take victory for granted. It does not demand and command but it muddles through, sneaks by, smuggles itself amidst the powers of destruction, knowing somewhere that God's plan for Creation is still at the very beginning."

This is a specially moving statement by one of modern Literature's greatest writers.
... Read more