Editing Isaac Bashevis Singer (section)

==Life==
[[File:Israel Joszua Singer Isaac Bashevis Singer 1930s.jpg|thumb|Isaac (right) with his brother [[Israel Joshua Singer]] (1930s)]]
[[File:Ulica Krochmalna w Warszawie ok. 1941.jpg|thumb|Krochmalna Street in [[Warsaw]] near the place where the Singers lived (1940 or 1941)]]
[[File:Biłgoraj - Ławka Izaaka Baszewisa Singera (01) - DSC00455 v1.jpg|thumb|Singer's bench in [[Biłgoraj]]]]
[[File:Tablica Izaak Baszewis Singer ul. Krochmalna 1.jpg|thumb|Commemorative plaque at 1 Krochmalna Street in Warsaw]]
Isaac Bashevis Singer was born in 1903<ref name=":0" /> to a Jewish family in [[Leoncin]] village near [[Warsaw]], [[Poland]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Isaac Bashevis Singer {{!}} American author |url= https://www.britannica.com/biography/Isaac-Bashevis-Singer |access-date=November 12, 2020 |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |language=en}}</ref> The Polish form of his birth name was '''Icek Hersz Zynger'''.<ref name="Noiville2008">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Td7xGID0IhQC |author=Florence Noiville |title=Isaac B. Singer: A Life |publisher=Northwestern University Press |year=2008 |page=65 |isbn=978-0810124820|author-link=Florence Noiville}}</ref> The exact date of his birth is uncertain, but most sources say it was probably November 11, a date similar to the one that Singer gave to his official biographer Paul Kresh,{{Sfn|Kresh| 1979|p=390}} his secretary Dvorah Telushkin,{{Sfn | Telushkin | 1997 | p = 266}} and Rabbi William Berkowitz.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/03/nyregion/new-york-day-by-day-165347.html |title=New York Day by Day; |date=September 3, 1984 |work=The New York Times|access-date=November 21, 2019 |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> The year 1903 is consistent with the historical events that his brother refers to in their childhood memoirs, including the death of [[Theodor Herzl]]. The often-quoted birth date, July 14, 1904, was made up by the author in his youth, possibly to make himself younger to avoid the draft.{{Sfn | Tree | 2004 | pp = 18–19}}

His father Pinchus-Mendel Zinger (1868–?) was a [[Hasidic]] [[rabbi]] from [[Tomaszów Lubelski]] ([[Lublin Governorate]]), and his mother, Szewa (nee Zilberman, 1871–?) was from {{ill|Poritsk|uk|Старий Порицьк}} ([[Vladimir-Volynsky Uyezd]], [[Volhynia Governorate]]); parents registered their marriage on June 2 (14) 1889 in [[Biłgoraj]].<ref>[https://www.szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl/en/jednostka/-/jednostka/10503452?p_p_id=Jednostka&_Jednostka_delta=1&_Jednostka_cur=158 Marriage Record in Polish State Archives (in Russian Language)]: Father's parents are listed as Tomaszów dwellers Shmul Zinger and Tema Sheyner; mother's parents as Poritsk dwellers Yakov-Mordka Zilberman and Chana Danziger.</ref> Singer later used her first name in an initial literary pseudonym, ''Izaak Baszewis'', which he later expanded.<ref>Several of his professional identification cards using localized spellings and further variants of these names are reproduced in: {{cite book |last=Wollitz |first=Seth L. |editor1-last=Staley |editor1-first=Thomas F. |title=The Hidden Isaac Bashevis Singer |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6CMeS2WOSWMC |access-date=July 28, 2012 |series=Literary Modernism Series |year=2001 |publisher=University of Texas Press |isbn=978-0-292-79147-3}}</ref> Both his older siblings, sister [[Esther Kreitman]] (1891–1954) and brother [[Israel Joshua Singer]] (1893–1944), became writers as well. Esther was the first of the family to write stories.{{Sfn | Carr | 1992}}

The family moved to the court of the Rabbi of [[Radzymin]] in 1907, where his father became head of the Yeshiva. After the Yeshiva building burned down in 1908, the family moved to Warsaw, a flat at Krochmalna Street 10. In the spring of 1914, the Singers moved to No. 12.<ref>{{Citation |first=J |last=Leociak |title=Spojrzenia na warszawskie getto. Ulica Krochmalna |trans-title=Glimpses of the Warsaw Ghetto |publisher=Dom Spotkań z Historią |place=Warszawa |year=2011 |page=29 |oclc=800883074}}</ref>

The street where Singer grew up was located in the impoverished, [[Yiddish]]-speaking Jewish quarter of Warsaw. There his father served as a rabbi, and was called on to be a judge, arbitrator, religious authority and spiritual leader in the Jewish community.{{Sfn | Singer | 1967}} The unique atmosphere of pre-war Krochmalna Street can be found both in the collection of ''Varshavsky-stories'', which tell stories from Singer's childhood,<ref>Best known: ''My Father's Court'' 1966</ref> as well as in those novels and stories which take place in pre-war Warsaw.<ref>''Die familye Mushkat''/''The Family Moskat'' 1950, ''Shoym'' 1967/Scum 1991, etc.</ref>

===World War I===
In 1917, because of the hardships of World War I, the family split up. Singer moved with his mother and younger brother Moshe to Biłgoraj, a traditional ''[[shtetl]],'' where his mother's brothers had followed his grandfather as rabbis.{{Sfn | Singer | 1967}} When his father became a village rabbi again in 1921, Singer returned to [[Warsaw]]. He entered the [[Tachkemoni]] Rabbinical Seminary and soon decided that neither the school nor the profession suited him. He returned to Biłgoraj, where he tried to support himself by giving [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] lessons, but soon gave up and joined his parents, considering himself a failure. In 1923, his older brother Israel Joshua arranged for him to move to Warsaw to work as a proofreader for the Jewish magazine ''[[Literarishe Bleter]]'', of which the brother was an editor.{{Sfn | Singer | 1976}}

[[File:Literarishe bleter.jpg|thumb|Cover of the Literarishe Bleter]]

===United States===
In 1935, four years before the [[Nazi Germany|Nazi]] [[Invasion of Poland|invasion]], Singer emigrated from [[Second Polish Republic|Poland]] to the United States.<ref name= "Jewish Am Hall Fame" /> He was fearful of the growing threat in neighboring Germany.<ref>{{cite book |first=Kristina |last=Maul |title=Communication and Society in Jewish American Short Stories |publisher=GRIN Verlag |year=2007 |page=19 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sl1jSXDV7nwC&pg=PA19 |isbn=9783638843201}}.</ref> The move separated the author from his common-law first wife Runia Pontsch and son Israel Zamir (1929–2014); they immigrated to [[Moscow]] and then [[Mandatory Palestine|Palestine]]. The three met again in 1955.

Singer settled in [[New York City]], where he took up work as a journalist and columnist for ''[[The Jewish Daily Forward]]'' ({{lang |yi|פֿאָרװערטס}}), a Yiddish-language newspaper. (When he arrived in the US, he only knew three words of English: "Take a chair".<ref name= "Jewish Am Hall Fame" />) After a promising start, he became despondent and for some years felt ''Lost in America'' (title of his 1974 memoir published in Yiddish; published in English in 1981).

In 1938, he met Alma Wassermann ([[née]] Haimann) (1907–1996), a German-Jewish refugee from [[Munich]]. They married in 1940, and their union seemed to release energy in him; he returned to prolific writing and to contributing to the ''Forward''. In addition to his pen name of "Bashevis", he published under the pen names of "Warszawski" (pron. Varshavsky) during World War&nbsp;II,<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Shmeruk |first1=Chone |last2= Pekal| first2= Anna| title= Isaac Bashevis Singer on Bruno Schulz|date=1991|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25778558|journal=The Polish Review|volume=36|issue=2|pages=161–167|jstor=25778558|issn=0032-2970}}</ref> and "D. Segal".<ref>See both bibliographies (given on this page).</ref> They lived for many years in the [[Belnord]] apartment building on Manhattan's [[Upper West Side]].<ref name=belnord>{{Citation |journal=The City Review |url= http://www.thecityreview.com/uws/bway/belnord.html/ |title=The Belnord |first=Carter B |last=Horsley | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100330034105/http://www.thecityreview.com/uws/bway/belnord.html/ | archive-date = March 30, 2010}}.</ref> He became a US citizen in 1943.<ref name= "Jewish Am Hall Fame" />

In 1981, Singer delivered a commencement address at the [[University at Albany]] and was presented with an honorary doctorate.<ref>{{Citation |title=YouTube |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4liBfiEdEE | archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/R4liBfiEdEE| archive-date=2021-12-11 | url-status=live|contribution=University at Albany's 137th Annual Commencement |date=May 24, 1981 |format=video}}{{cbignore}}.</ref>

Singer died on July 24, 1991, in [[Surfside, Florida]], after suffering a series of [[stroke]]s. He was buried in [[Cedar Park Cemetery, Paramus]], [[New Jersey]].<ref name=nyt1>{{Cite news |first=Robert |last=Strauss |title= Sometimes the Grave Is a Fine and Public Place |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEFD71230F93BA15750C0A9629C8B63 |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=March 28, 2004 |access-date= August 21, 2007}}.</ref><ref>{{Cite news |first=Eric |last=Pace |title=Isaac Bashevis Singer, Nobel Laureate for His Yiddish Stories, Is Dead at 87 |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE6D91231F935A15754C0A967958260 |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=July 26, 1991 |access-date=April 30, 2008}}.</ref> A street in Surfside, Florida, is named Isaac Singer Boulevard in his honor.