Isaac Bashevis Singer: Writings on Yiddish and Yiddishkayt: A Final Reckoning, 1956-1973

From the late 1950s, as Isaac Bashevis Singer became a major figure in American letters— one of the first Yiddish authors to do so— the future Nobel Laureate thought deeply about the fate of Yiddish culture in posterity. In this provocative series of essays, he advocates for Yiddish as a unique symbol of spiritual power in the face of adversity, a symbol forged during centuries of Jewish exile. Diaspora assimilation may continue apace, while a Hebrew-speaking homeland grows in population, a...