SINGER, I.J.

born Nov. 30, 1893, Bilgoraj, Pol. died Feb. 10, 1944, New York, N.Y., U.S. in full Israel Joshua Singer Polish-born writer in Yiddish, noted for his realistic historical novels. I.J. Singer was the son of a Hasidic rabbi and was the older brother of the writer Isaac Bashevis Singer. He began writing tales of Hasidic life in 1915 and then worked as a newspaper correspondent in Warsaw during the 1920s and early '30s, publishing several collections of short stories during this time, including the short story Perl (The Pearl), which was his first international success. His novel Yoshe Kalb, a description of Hasidic life in Galicia, appeared in 1932, and the next year he immigrated to the United States. His subsequent writings appeared in serialized form in the Jewish Daily Forward newspaper in New York City. The novel Di Brider Ashkenazi (The Brothers Ashkenazi) was published in 1936 and was followed in 1943 by Di Mishpokhe Karnovski (The Family Carnovsky). Like his brother, I.J. Singer wrote multi-generational family novels; but, unlike his brother, he firmly links his vivid characters with a larger historical and socioeconomic setting, which receives considerable attention throughout the book. Singer's masterpiece, The Brothers Ashkenazi, examines the rivalry of two very different brothers whose fortunes parallel that of their birthplace, the Polish industrial city of Ldz. The Family Carnovsky traces an assimilated German-Jewish family for several decades until its members must immigrate to the United States after the Nazi takeover. Singer also wrote short stories and plays that were successsfully produced by Yiddish theatre groups both in Europe and in the United States.