Israel Joshua Singer was a Yiddish

Yiddish language

Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...

 novelist. He was born Yisroel Yehoyshue Zinger, the son of Pinchas Mendl Zinger, a rabbi and author of rabbinic commentaries, and Basheva Zylberman. He was the brother of Nobel Prize-winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer

Isaac Bashevis Singer

Isaac Bashevis Singer – July 24, 1991) was a Polish Jewish American author noted for his short stories. He was one of the leading figures in the Yiddish literary movement, and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978...

 and novelist Esther Kreitman

Esther Kreitman

Hinde Ester Singer Kreytman , known in English as Esther Kreitman, was a Yiddish-language novelist and short story writer. She was born in Biłgoraj, Poland to a rabbinic Jewish family. Her younger brothers Israel Joshua Singer and Isaac Bashevis Singer also became writers.Kreitman had an unhappy...

.

Singer contributed to the European Yiddish press from 1916; and in 1921, after Abe Cahan noticed his story "Pearls", Singer became a correspondent for the leading American Yiddish newspaper The Forward

The Forward

The Forward , commonly known as The Jewish Daily Forward, is a Jewish-American newspaper published in New York City. The publication began in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily issued by dissidents from the Socialist Labor Party of Daniel DeLeon...

. His short story, Liuk, appeared in 1924, illuminating the ideological confusion of the Bolshevik Revolution. He wrote his first novel, Steel and Iron, in 1927. In 1934 he emigrated to the United States. He died in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 in 1944.

His memoir Of a World That is No More appeared posthumously in 1946. His other works include:

• Steel and Iron (1927)
• Yoshe Kalb (1932)
• The Brothers Ashkenazi
  The Brothers Ashkenazi
  The Brothers Ashkenazi is a novel by Israel Joshua Singer. Written in Yiddish, it was first translated into English by Maurice Samuel in 1936. In 1980 a new translation was published by the author's son, Joseph Singer....
  
  (1936)
• The Family Carnovsky (1969)
• East of Eden, (originally titled Khaver Nachman) published by Alfred J. Knopf (1939)

In the introduction to A Treasury of Yiddish Stories, Irving Howe

Irving Howe

Irving Howe was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Life and career:...

and Eliezer Greenberg note that Singer's books are organized "in a way that satisfies the usual Western expectations as to literary structure. His novels resemble the kind of family chronicle popular in Europe several decades ago [that is, the turn of the century]".

External Links

YIVO: Israel Joshua Singer

Joseph Sherman, "Israel Joshua Singer"