YISROEL-SHIYE
ZINGER (Y. Y. ZINGER, I. J. SINGER) (November 30, 1893-February 10, 1944)
He
was born in Biłgoraj, Lublin
district, Poland. His father,
Pinkhes-Mendl Zinger, was a great scholar, an author of a number of religious
texts, and for a time rabbi in Leoncin, near Warsaw, later serving as a
rabbinical judge in Warsaw and subsequently in Dzików (Dzhikov), Galicia. His mother Basheva was the daughter of the
rabbi of Biłgoraj. Until age seventeen
Zinger studied Talmud, Tosafot, and other commentators, including Yore dea (one of the sections of Shulḥan arukh)—with itinerant teachers,
in Radzymin with the rebbe,
in the Ger Yeshiva in Warsaw—and at the same time, he was surreptitiously
reading books in Hebrew, later in Yiddish as well, while trying his hand at
drawing, painting, and writing. At
eighteen years of age, he left home, moved to Warsaw where he worked as a
machine repairer, an office worker, a retoucher for the writer and photographer
Alter Katsizne (Kacyzne), and an unskilled laborer as well. As an external student at the time, he
studied Polish, Russian, German, and other secular subjects. With the outbreak of WWI in 1914, in order
not to go to war which went against his convictions, he hid out in an artist’s
atelier of the later well-known sculpture Abraham Ostrzega in Warsaw, and there
he turned his attention to painting and writing Hassidic stories. He suffered from want and hunger, and worked
for a time for the Germans to repair a bridge.
At that time the Orthodox leader Nokhum-Leyb Vayngot was preparing to
publish an Orthodox newspaper, and he was looking for newspaper writers within
Orthodox circles. He got wind of Zinger,
the son of the rabbinical judge from the Krochmalna area (of Warsaw), and wrote
and sent after him to ask if he had a sketch of Jewish life. “It need not be Orthodox, but it only must
not be heretical,” he cautioned. Zinger
then placed in Vayngot’s weekly, Dos
yudishe vort (The Jewish word), a sketch about an older woman, and this was
his literary début. Later in the same
newspaper he published a series of other stories, and he translated a novel by
the German writer Lehmann which was built around the biography of Rabbi
Juselmann.
After the Revolution in Russia,
Zinger (early 1918) left for Kiev where he published a series of novellas in
the Kiev Yiddish daily newspaper Di naye
tsayt (The new times), which had begun publication in September 1917, and
in the collections Baginen (Dawn) and
Oyfgang (Arise) in Kiev (1919). He also worked for the newspapers as a
proofreader and carried the papers to the post office. Under the influence of the “Kiev Group” of
writers, he composed his dramas Erd-vey
(Earth-woe) and Dray (Three). When Denikin’s troops seized Kiev in 1919,
Zinger wrote his story “Perl” (Pearl) which marked a change in his subsequent
literary road. He initially had no
success with the story: in early 1920 he traveled to Moscow and offered it to
Dovid Bergelson for a literary anthology that the latter was planning to
publish. Bergelson liked the story and
arranged for Zinger to read the story before the Moscow Yiddish writers, but
the story was not a hit among them.
Litvakov stated simply that it was “unprintable.” At the end of 1921 he returned to Warsaw and
published his story in Ringen
(Links), a journal for literature, art, and criticism (Warsaw, 1921-1922),
edited by M. Vaykhert. Initially “Perl”
did not engender any particular interest in Warsaw, but Ab. Kahan noticed it
and republished it in Forverts
(Forward), wrote an enthusiastic essay about it, and from that point (1923)
Zinger not only published in Forverts
(in New York) his fictional works, but he became a regular correspondent to the
newspaper for Poland, and he published (under the pseudonym G. Kuper) hundreds
of correspondence pieces, descriptions, and events from Jewish life in
Poland. In 1924 on assignment for Forverts, he visited Galicia, and in a
long series of articles described local Jewish life. Over the years 1922-1928, he was thoroughly
absorbed in the emerging Jewish cultural and literary life in Poland, took an
active part in virtually all local literary publications, anthologies, and
periodicals, and was one of the initiators and avid supporters of Ringen.
Together with Perets Markish, Nakhmen Mayzil, Alter Kacyzne, and Meylekh
Ravitsh, in 1924 he was a co-editor of Literarishe
bleter (Literary leaves) in Warsaw, and he was one of the founders and
(with Perets Markish) co-editors of the journal Khalyastre (Gang) (Warsaw, 1922—only one issue appeared). He traveled through Poland in 1926, and he
published his impressions from the trip in Haynt
(Today) in Warsaw. He also closely
contributed to the Warsaw publishing house of Kultur-lige (Culture league) of
B. Kletskin. Zinger also published
stories, literary critical articles, and book reviews in such Warsaw
publications as Bikher-velt (Book
world), Folkstsaytung (People’s
newspaper), and Varshever almanakh
(Warsaw almanac), and Tsukunft
(Future) in New York. He made a trip to
Soviet Russia in 1926, and after returning (late 1927) he came out (in Literarishe bleter, no. 43) with a call
to Yiddish writers in all lands that they convene a world conference following
the example of the Czernowitz Language Conference of 1908. “Such a congress,” he wrote at the time,
“would be of immense moral significance.
Afterward, as we establish a rapprochement among ourselves, we will be
able to create bonds between ourselves and the world, between ourselves and the
Yiddish press, between ourselves and Yiddish readers, between one country and
the next….” He was in 1928 one of the
principal initiators of the planned revival of the journal Di yidishe velt (The Jewish world) through Kletskin publishers, and
he (together with Perets Markish, Nakhmen Mayzil, and Meylekh Ravitsh) edited
the first issue of the journal, but with the second issue he withdrew from the
journal. He had experienced at the time
a personal crisis caused by attacks on him in a number of Yiddish newspapers,
and with an open letter in Folkstsaytung
(Warsaw) he withdrew from fictional writing altogether. In the next few years, he did indeed fulfill
this “vow” and devoted himself solely to newspaper work for Forverts in New York and Haynt in Warsaw, but a rendezvous with
Ab. Cahan in 1931 in Berlin changed his mood, it would appear, and on June 4,
1932 he began to publish in installments in Forverts
his novel Yoshe kalb (Yoshe Kalb
[calf])—approximately at this time he also published it in Haynt. This work depicted a
slice of Jewish life from Galician rabbinical courts in the latter half of the
nineteenth century, but the types and figures of this life in 1930s Jewish
Poland were more than anything else living, realistic figures and had an
immense impact on actual Jewish life.
The novel aroused great enthusiasm among the masses of readers on both
sides of the Atlantic, but at the same time many malicious critics, such as
those coming from the side of religious Jewry, as well as Yiddish writers who
believed that the author in this work had sinned in comparison with pure
artistic creation. In 1931 Yoshe kalb was staged by Maurice
Schwartz and performed to great success in his Yiddish Art Theatre in New York and
on tour in North America. The success of
its dramatization was so enormous that in New York alone it played continuously
for two consecutive seasons. In August
1931 Zinger traveled to the United States and attended the performance of Yoshe kalb In New York. In 1932 he published in the monthly Globus (The globe) in Warsaw his play Savinkov ([Boris] Savinkov) which was
staged in the Warsaw Polish theater under the direction of Leon Schiller. After the death of his older son Yankev in
1933, Zinger settled in New York and published serially in Forverts his novels: Di
brider ashkenazi (The brothers Ashkenazi), Khaver nakhmen (Comrade Nakhmen), Di mishpokhe karnovski (The family Carnovsky), and a novel of
American Jewish life entitled In di berg
(In the mountains). He also wrote pieces
for Tsukunft and Svive (Environs), edited by K. Molodovski, in New York, among other
journals.
Zinger’s works in book form include:
Erd-vey, a drama in three scenes from
the era of the war, revolution, and pogroms in Ukraine (Warsaw: Kultur-lige,
1922), 55 pp.;
Perl un andere
detseylungen (Pearl and other stories) (Warsaw: Kultur-lige, 1922), 245
pp., second edition (Vilna: Kletskin, 1929), 257 pp.;
Leymgrubn (Clay mines) (Warsaw: Kultur-lige, 1924), 38 pp.;
Af fremde erd, ertseylungen (On alien
soil, stories) (Vilna: Kletskin, 1925), 278 pp., second edition (1930);
Shtol un ayzn, roman (Steel and iron, a
novel), a novel from the period of WWI, the Russian Civil War, and the
Revolution in Russia (Vilna: Kletskin, 1927), 346 pp., second edition (1928);
Nay-rusland, bilder fun a rayze (New
Russia, impressions from a trip) in the Soviet Union (Vilna: Kletskin, 1928),
246 pp., second edition (Warsaw: Kh. Bzhoza, 1939);
Yoshe kalb, a novel published by the author (Warsaw, 1932), 341
pp., with other editions (Buenos Aires: G. Kaplanski, 1933), 255 pp., (Warsaw:
Kh. Bzhoza, 1937), and (New York: Matones, 1956), 238 pp.;
Di brider Ashkenazi, a novel in three volumes from the history of
the Jewish community in Lodz and the contribution of Jews to the construction
of the local textile industry—part 1, “Geburt” (Birth), 328 pp.; part 2,
“Koymens in himl” (Chimneys in the sky), 288 pp.; part 3, “Shpinvebs”
(Cobwebs), 272 pp.—(Warsaw: Kh. Bzhoza, 1936; New York: M. N. Mayzel, 1937; New
York: Matones, 1951), dramatized by Maurice Schwartz and staged with great
success in his Art Theatre in New York and on tour in Europe and in Latin
American countries (it was also translated in English, Dutch, and Spanish and
elicited great enthusiasm among critics throughout the world)
;
Friling un andere dertseylungen (Spring and others stories)
(Warsaw: Kh. Bzhoza, 1937), 223 pp.;
Khaver
nakhmen, a novel in three parts (New York, 1938), 447 pp., dramatized by
Zinger himself and staged by Maurice Schwartz’s Art Theatre;
Di mishpokhe karnovski, a novel from the
era of Hitler (New York: Matones, 1943), 518 pp., also dramatized and staged by
Maurice Schwartz’s Art Theatre;
Fun a
velt vos iz noshto mer (From a world that is no more), memoirs of Zinger’s
childhood years, published earlier in
Forverts
under the title “Emese pasirungen” (True events) (New York: Matones, 1946), 267
pp., with a bio-bibliographical introduction by Arn Tsaytlin;
Vili (Willy), abridged and interpreted
by Zalmen Yefroykin (New York: New York Workmen’s Circle Middle School, 1948),
111 pp.;
Dertseylungen (Stories) (New
York: Matones, 1949), 349 pp. In Hebrew:
Yoshe egel (Yoshe the calf), translated by
Menaḥem Zalman Wolfowski (Tel Aviv: Devir, 1936),
235 pp.; Haaḥim
ashkenazi (The brothers Ashkenazi), translated by David Sivan (Tel Aviv: M.
Nyuman, 1953), 594 pp. Also translated
into Hebrew was
Di mishpokhe karnovski
(as
Bet karnovski), translated by M.
Lipson (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1945/1946), 479 pp.; and a volume of his stories
entitled
Mishene evre havisla (From
both sides of the Vistula), translated by Shimshon Meltser (Jerusalem:
Hameasef, 1945), 269 pp. In English:
The Sinner (translation of
Yoshe kalb), translated by Maurice
Samuel (London: Victor Gollancz, 1933), 318 pp., (New York: Liveright, 1933),
314 pp.;
Blood Harvest (translation
of
Shtol un ayzn), translated by
Morris Kreitman (son of Esther Kreitman) (London, 1935), 344 pp.;
The Brothers Ashkenazi, translated by
Maurice Samuel (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1938), 642 pp.;
East of Eden (translation of
Khaver
nakhmen), translated by Maurice Samuel (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1939), 402
pp., (London: Putnam & Co., 1939), 470 pp.
In Polish:
Yoshe Kalb (Warsaw:
Roy, 1934). Zinger translated from the Polish Jerzy
Żuławski’s drama in four acts:
Shapse tsvi (Shabbatai Tsvi
[original: Koniec Mesjasza (The end of the messiah)]) (Warsaw: Di tsayt, 1923), 144 pp.—it was staged with great
success by Sigmund Turkow in Warsaw and by Maurice Schwartz in New York. Zinger contributed to a great number of
newspapers, journals, and periodical publications in various countries. His writings were included in Yiddish readers
and textbooks, as well as in anthologies in Yiddish, Hebrew, English, and other
languages. In 1960 the publisher Matones
in New York reissued Khaver nakhmen
in a new edition (336 pp.).
Zinger died suddenly of a heart
attack at his home in New York. He was
the older brother of the writer Yitskhok Bashevis and younger brother of the
novelist Esther Kreitman. “Y. Y. Zinger
was prose master,” wrote Meylekh Ravitsh, “of the first rank. His art of building an architectonic novel
was virtually unmatched in Yiddish literature.
His rich, exacting, though sparsely idiomatic language had a classical
quality. In his major works—Comrade Nakhmen, The Brothers Ashkenazi, and The
Family Carnovsky—he masterfully brought to expression the issues of his
time…. Also, as an essayist Zinger made
lasting accomplishments. I note only one
essay by him: ‘Tsvey-toyzentyoriker toes’ (Two-thousand-year-old error), Tsukunft (1939).”
(Translator’s
note: Many more editions and translations of his work have appeared in recent
years. See also the excellent study by Anita Norich, The
Homeless Imagination in the Fiction of Israel Joshua Singer (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1991—JAF).
Sources:
Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1; Z.
Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn teater
(Handbook of the Yiddish theater), vol. 1; Y. Shtern, in Literarishe bleter (Warsaw) (February 18, 1927); Shtern, Lider un un eseyen (Poems and essays) (New York, 1956), pp. 248-50; N.
Mayzil, Noente un vayte (Near and
far), vol. 2 (Vilna, 1926), pp. 233-39; Mayzil, in Haynt-yubiley-bukh, 668-688, 1908-1928 (Jubilee volume for Haynt, 668-688, 1908-1928) (Warsaw,
1928); Mayzil, in Forverts (New York)
(September 25, 1932); Mayzil, in Literarishe
bleter (October 11, 1935); Mayzil, in Yidishe
kultur (New York) (March 1944); Mayzil, Forgeyer un mittsaytler
(Forerunner and contemporary) (New York, 1946), pp. 372-91; Mayzil, Geven amol a lebn
(Once was a life) (Buenos Aires, 1951); Mayzil, in Amerike in
yidishn vort (America in the Yiddish word), an anthology (New York, 1956),
see index; M. Vaykhert, Teater
un drame (Theater and drama), vol. 2 (Vilna, 1926), pp.
30-34; Vaykhert, in Di yidishe velt
(Vilna) (May 1928); Perets Markish, in Shtern
(Minsk) (March 1927); Yud Beys (Yitskhok Bashevis), in Literarishe bleter (January 7, 1927); Bashevis, in Forverts (May 7, 1955); Bashevis, Mayn tatns bezdn shtub (My father’s
rabbinical court) (New York, 1956), pp. 151, 162, 254-59, 277-88, 295, 301-2,
308, 315; A. M. Fuks, in Literarishe
bleter (March 11, 1927); Shmuel Niger, in Tsukunft (May 1924); Niger, in Bikher-velt
(Warsaw) (May 1928); Niger, in Tog
(New York) (November 6, 1932); Niger, in Tsukunft
(February 1933; December 1933; December 1936; June 1937); Niger, in Tog morgn-zhurnal (New York) (February
21, 1954); Niger, Habikoret
uveayoteha (Inquiry and its problems) (Jerusalem, 1957), p. 530; A. Litvak,
in Der veker (New York) (June 9,
1928); A. Leyeles, in In zikh (New
York) 3 (1928); Leyeles, in Tog
(April 17, 1954); Y. Rapoport, in Vokhnshrift
far literatur (Warsaw) (August 4, 1932); Rapoport, in Tsukunft (March 1949); Oysgerisene bleter
(Torn up pages) (Melbourne, 1957); Y. Entin, in Tsukunft (November 1932); Entin, in Pyonern-froyen (New York) (April 1944); A. Tsaytlin, in Globus (Warsaw) 6 (1932); Tsaytlin, in Blegishe bleter (Antwerp) 6 (21) (1937);
Tsaytlin, preface to Zinger’s book, Fun a
velt vos iz nishto mer (From a world that is no more) (New York, 1946), pp.
5-12; Tsaytlin, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal
(February 26, 1960); Dr. A. Mukdoni, in Morgn-zhurnal
(New York) (November 11, 1932; May 19, 1933; May 17, 1935); Ab. Cahan, in Forverts (May 21, 1932); H. Rogof, in Forverts (April 23, 1932; June 9, 1932;
December 1, 1932); Rogof, in Ilustrirte
literarishe bleter (Buenos Aires) 13-14 (September 1954); Rogof, Der gayst fun forverts (The spirit of
the Forverts) (New York, 1954); Y.
Botoshanski, Portretn fun yidishe shrayber (Portraits of Yiddish
writers) (Warsaw, 1933); Botoshanski, in Der
veg (Mexico City) (June 21, 1947); B. Ts. Goldberg, in Tog (February 22 1933; February 27, 1933); Goldberg, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (November 18, 1954);
Meylekh Ravitsh, in Keneder odler
(Montreal) (February 16-17, 1934; January 10, 1952); Ravitsh, in Tsukunft (October 1939; March 1944);
Ravitsh, Mayn leksikon (My lexicon),
vol. 1 (Montreal, 1945); Ravitsh, in Letste
nayes (Tel Aviv) (May 14, 1954); Ravitsh, in Idisher kemfer (New York) (Rosh Hashanah issue, 1957); Ravitsh, in Di goldene keyt (Tel Aviv) 35 (1959),
pp. 114-45; Dr. Shloyme Bikl, in Unzer
veg (New York) (December 15, 1941); Bikl, in Zamlbikher (New York) 6 (1946); Bikl, Shrayber fun mayn dor (Writers of my generation) (New York, 1958),
pp. 317-27; D. Eynhorn, in Forverts
(February 19, 1944); Y. Y. Zinger, in Forverts
(June 7, 1942); Y. Y. Trunk, in Poylishe yidn (Polish Jews), yearbook
(1942); Trunk, in Tsukunft (March
1944); Trunk, Di yidishe proze in poyln in der tekufe tsvishn beyde
velt-milkhomes (Yiddish prose in Poland in the era between the two world
wars) (Buenos Aires, 1949), pp. 108-20; Trunk, Poyln, zikhroynes un bilder (Poland, memories and images), vol. 7
(New York, 1944), p. 101; B. Rivkin, in Epokhe
(New York) 13-14-15 (1944); Rivkin, Undzere
prozaiker (Our prose writers) (New York, 1951), pp. 264-73; R. Omri,
preface to Mishene evre havisla (From
both sides of the Vistula) (Jerusalem, 1945); Sh. Saymon (Solomon Simon), Kinder-yorn fun yidishe shrayber (The
youths of Yiddish writers), vol. 2 (New York, 1945), pp. 145-208; Z.
Segalovitsh, Tlomatske 13, fun farbrentn nekhtn (13 Tłomackie
St., of scorched yesterdays) (Buenos Aires, 1946), pp. 16, 97, 220; Moyshe Shtarkman, in
Hadoar (New York) (May 23, 1947); N.
Y. Gotlib, in Keneder odler (April
14, 1947); Y. Opatoshu, in Zamlbikher
7 (1948), pp. 453-59; Avrom Reyzen, in Di
feder (New York) (1949); Sh. Perlmuter, Yidishe dramaturgn un
teater-kompozitorn (Yiddish playwrights and theatrical composers) (New
York, 1952), pp. 306-11; Y. Mestl, 70 yor teater-repertuar (Seventy
years of theater repertoire) (New York, 1954), see index; B. Kutsher, Geven amol varshe (As Warsaw once was)
(Paris, 1955), pp. 174, 175, 212, 266; E. Almi, In gerangl fun ideyen, eseyen (Struggling with idea, essays)
(Buenos Aires, 1957), pp. 122-25; H. Lang, in Forverts (November 7, 1959); Dr. A. A. Roback, The Story of Yiddish Literature (New York, 1940), pp. 304-9; The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, vol.
9 (New York, 1943).
Zaynvl Diamant
