July 14: I. B. Singer

Isaac Bashevis Singer, the only Yiddish writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature (in 1978), was born in a village near Warsaw on this date in 1904. His father was a hasidic rabbi. Singer emigrated to the U.S. in 1935 and began a long if late-starting literary career with the Jewish Forward in 1945, after the death of his elder writer-brother, I. J. Singer (their sister, Esther Kreitman, who died in 1954, was also a writer). Isaac Bashevis (his middle name means “Bathsheba’s,” after his mother) wrote sexually charged, mystically tinged stories and novels that were quite different in content from the humanistic writings of the classic Yiddish writers. He was politically conservative and famously vegetarian. “When a human kills an animal for food,” he wrote, “he is neglecting his own hunger for justice. Man prays for mercy, but is unwilling to extend it to others. Why should man then expect mercy from God?”

“Jews are a people that can’t sleep and won’t let anybody else.” —Isaac Bashevis Singer

Read and listen to Singer’s Nobel Prize lecture.

A report from French television on Isaac Bashevis Singer winning the 1978 Nobel Prize for Literature includes the author’s comments on the event: