ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER, by
Aurora Ledesma
Biography
Isaac Bashevis
Singer, winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize for Literature, was one of the most
admired Jewish writers of the Twentieth Century, as well as an important figure
of Literature written in Yiddish, the language in which his books were
published throughout his career. His writings describe Jewish life in Poland
and the United States.
Isaac Bashevis
Singer was born on the 11th of November 1903 in Leoncin, Poland, and
died the 24th of July 1991 in Surfside, Florida. He was the fifth of
six children, of whom only four survived. His father was a rabbi, and his
mother, the daughter of the rabbi of Biigoraj. His sister Hinde Esther and his
brother Israel Joshua, became writers as well and played prominent roles in his
life and served as models for a number of his fictional characters. His younger
brother, Moishe and his mother both died in the Holocaust.
His family moved
to Warsaw, Poland, when he was four years old. Singer was also educated in a
strict spiritual practice. He received a traditional Jewish education at the
Warsaw Rabbinical Seminary. But singer preferred being a writer to being a
rabbi. In 1925 he made his debut with the story In Old Age which he
published in Warsaw. His first novel, Satan in Goray, was published in
Poland before he migrated to the U.S.A in 1935.
He was married in
Poland and had a son, but, when he moved to New York, he left them and, then,
in 1938, he met Alma Wassermann, a German Jewish refugee, and married her.
He settled in New
York, as his brother had done a year before, and worked for the Yiddish
Newspaper Forvets and he also translated many books into Yiddish from Hebrew and
Polish, and some books by Thomas Man from German.
Although Singer’s
works were now available in their English versions, he continued to write
almost exclusively in Yiddish until his death.
Singer has popular
collections of short stories translated into English, one of the most popular
around the world is Gimpel the Fool. His short stories are saturated
with Jewish folklore, legends and mysticism.
Among his most
important novels are The Family Moskat, The Magician of Lublin, Enemies,
A Love Story, which have been adapted into films. The most famous story
adapted to a film is Yentl with Barbra Streisand.
He also wrote My
Father’s Court, an autobiographical work about his childhood in Warsaw.
THE STORY: GIMPEL THE FOOL
Gimpel, who has
had the reputation of being a fool since his school days, is the narrator of
his own story. Gimpel is an orphan who was being raised by his sickly
grandfather. He lives in a town called Frampol and works as a baker. He
believes everything he is told, trusting that even strange and crazy things are
always possible. His neighbours convince him to marry Elka, a local prostitute,
whom he believes to be a virgin, even though she already has one child and is
pregnant when they marry. When Elka gives birth only four months after their
marriage, she convinces Gimpel that the boy was born prematurely. Gimpel grows
to love the baby and cares for Elka. One day, he discovers Elka with another
man in their bed. Gimpel goes to the town rabbi to seek advice, and the rabbi
tells him that he must divorce Elka and stay away from her and her two bastard
children. Gimpel starts to miss Elka and the baby, and he retracts his
declarations to the rabbi, believing Elka when she tells him he was simply
hallucinating. Years later, Elka gets very sick, and, before dying, she
confesses the truth to him: none of the ten children she had are his.
One day, a short
time later, a demon visits him in a dream and persuades him to get revenge on
his neighbours by putting urine in the bread dough and selling it in the bakery.
However, before the bread can be sold, Gimpel buries all of it underground.
Then he packs his things and leaves the town of Frampol forever. He continues travelling
around the world as a beggar and storyteller for the rest of his life,
determined to believe that everything is possible. At the end of the story,
Gimpel says that, when he dies, he will do it so joyfully, as death and the
afterlife cannot deceive anyone.
QUESTIONS
Did you use to give nicknames to your schoolmates?
Can you tell us about one that was original and caught?
What do you know about the Golem?
Do you think that the jokes that Gimpel’s mates played
on him would be called “bullying” now?
What do you think about practical jokes played on the
beginners?
What do you know about The Wisdom of the Fathers?
What is your opinion about this sentence: “Better to
be a fool all your days than for one hour to be evil”?
Is it a good idea matchmaking? And what about webs or
applications to meet people?
“When you’re married, the husband’s the master”. Is
this machismo, or we cannot use this term for a different society or for a
different time?
“You cannot pass through the life unscathed”: what is
the meaning of this philosophy?
What is “bear-baiting”?
What is the meaning of this sentence in context: “No
bread can ever be baked from this dough”? Can you give some examples?
How they justify that Elka delivered a boy four months
after the wedding?
Did Gimpel love people, or was he only a fool?
What’s the meaning of “Shoulders are from God, but
burdens too”?
The story is situated in Frampol. Where is it? And
Lublin?
“He found an obscure reference in Maimonides that
favoured him”. What is for you the value of tradition or classical books for
science?
VOCABULARY
hee-hawed, lying in, all the way to (Cracow), made
tracks, pranksters, yeshiva, candle-dipper, cat music, took me in (take in),
fined, hand-me-down, sexton, hallah, revels, burrs, Tishe b’Av fast day,
kneading trough, galore, rooked, beat it, welkin, colicky, bear down, serve,
louts, loudmouths, going over, take stock in, dybbuks, leeches, cupping, bill
of goods, spin yarns, outlandish, hovel, shnorrer
