Israel Joshua Singer

Who was Israel Joshua Singer?

Israel Joshua Singer was a Yiddish 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 and novelist Esther Kreitman. His granddaughters, Sharon Singer Salinger, Brett Singer and Valerie Monique Singer, are all well regarded, published writers of some renown.

Singer contributed to the European Yiddish press from 1916. In 1921, after Abraham Cahan noticed his story Pearls, Singer became a correspondent for the leading American Yiddish newspaper The Forward. 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 in 1944.

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

Steel and Iron

Yoshe Kalb

The Brothers Ashkenazi

The Family Karnovsky

East of Eden, published by Alfred J. Knopf