Journey to My Father, Isaac Bashevis Singer [Paperback]

Israel Zamir (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 1996

When Isaac Bashevis Singer emigrated from Poland to America in 1935, he left behind his wife and five-year-old son, Israel, with the promise to send for them as soon as he got settled. He never did. Mother and child moved first to the USSR and ultimately to Israel, where Zamir grew up on a kibbutz. In 1995, twenty years after their separation, Zamir came to New York to meet his father. Singer's strengths and failings, his methods of working, his passion for the Yiddish language, his lust for words, for women, and for life, all come to new light in Zamir's candid and touching account. Journey to My Father, Isaac Bashevis Singer is a personal and moving portrait of one of this century's major writers. It is also an honest exploration of the often charged and complex relationship between father and son, and son and father.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Singer immigrated from Poland in 1935, leaving behind a wife and a five-year-old son. Mother and son, in an attempt to escape war-torn Europe, moved to the Soviet Union, were later exiled to Turkey, and eventually settled in Israel. Zamir grew up on a kibbutz, far removed from the Jewish New York experiences of his father. Twenty years later, a reunion of sorts occurred in New York. From that difficult time grew a strong bond that enriched both their lives in unexpected ways. Zamir's memoir is a testimony to the sweeping power of forgiveness and repentance. Zamir translated all of his father's works into Hebrew, accompanied him to Sweden for the Nobel Prize ceremonies, and grew to appreciate and honor his father's creative genius. Zamir's skill as a journalist shines; his memoir is beautifully written, terse, yet rich in detail. The journey, of course, leads to a fuller understanding of Singer as a writer, but we will remember the trip. Highly recommended.?Denise Sticha, Seton Hill Coll. Lib., Greensburg, Pa.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

In 1935, when Zamir was five years old, his father, Isaac Bashevis Singer, left Warsaw for New York, escaping a troubled marriage and cutting himself off from his only child. Zamir and Singer didn't meet again until the mid-1950s, when Zamir, a radical Zionist, traveled to the U.S. Zamir's account of their conflictful reunion and patient forging of a loving relationship is poignant on many levels. His well-told story embraces the tragedy of the Holocaust, the traumatic disillusionment with the Soviet Union once Stalin's horrors were revealed, and the courageous struggles of Israel, but what emerges most clearly and memorably is his portrait of Singer. Zamir came to love and revere his mystical, egocentric, and immensely talented father and even grew to understand why his father was such a "Jewish Casanova." He also translated his father's books into Hebrew. As he recounts his compelling conversations with his father, Zamir ponders Singer's belief in demons and ghosts and celebrates his endless curiosity, disciplined writing process, love of the Yiddish language, and great charm. Zamir's warm and vivid portrait proves that writing is a Singer trait. Donna Seaman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Arcade Publishing (November 15, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559703539
• ISBN-13: 978-1559703536
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #713,439 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A decent son and a not-so- decent great- writer -father, October 13, 2004

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Journey to My Father, Isaac Bashevis Singer (Hardcover)

I read this book in the language it was originally written, Hebrew. I found it to be a convincing and moving account of a relationship between a decent son and a not- so- decent great- writer father. Zamir's journey to his father, his efforts at befriending him have some success. But IB Singer who is without question one of Literature's greatest writer of stories was not very generous or welcoming. In time their relationship improves and the son translates the father's work into Hebrew. The sense is that the son is simply a very good human being, and the father a very great writer.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a good treatment of singer, October 15, 2007

By 

Eric Maroney (Trumansburg, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Journey to My Father, Isaac Bashevis Singer (Hardcover)

Of course, this memoir can be read as one son's quest for his father after a twenty year seperation. But it is also a book about the vicissitudes of European Jews before and after World War II. For those souls, three fates awaited them: death by the evil force of Nazism, exile in America or some other safe haven, or settlement in Palestine and later the State of Israel. Isaac Singer wound up in American, and his son in Israel. In many ways, they became the separate embodiments of the solution to the Jewish "problem." Zamir took on a Hebrew last name (Singer in Hebrew) became an ardent Communist and Kibbutznik, participated in the War of Independence, and later, the Yom Kippur War. His father became a secular Jew (in action if not in thought), a writer and intellectual, at home in the American milieu, and a triumph on the American model: ultimate accolades in his field and monetary accomplishment. Zamir and Singer are clearly opposites; Singer's personality is cold and distant, and convoluted by a sense of estrangement from the world and others. Zamir, the man of the kibbutz collective, is adept at dealing with people and organizations. He carries a machine gun into his father's Tel Aviv hotel during the Yom Kippur War and the Golus Jew and the Sabra are clearly distinguished. It is also enlightening to read Dvorah Telushkin's memoir of Singer before his son's. Singer reveals far more of his nature to women, and is far from afraid of letting his dark side show. [Teluskin appears in the memoir briefly, a bit player, lacking the centrality she gives herself in her own memoir, understandably.] For Zamir, Singer's motives are more veiled, although he is not afraid to speculate or show his father's deep flaws and shortcomings. If the book accomplishs anything, it shows how profoundly influential the 20th century was for the Jews both individually and collectively. Eveything was transformed.

2 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars his falther/my father, August 19, 2000

By 

mary lee mcharg (usa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Journey to My Father, Isaac Bashevis Singer (Paperback)

to learn about our father, i had to read his sons book. my father has brought me on a journey into vast spaces that needed him. he has made me understand when i had no one to understand, he came to me in a vision..in a book..in many books, yet he is my father and your his son. thank you for the only book that knows him, we know his thoughts..what is it that i cannot comprehend, but thank you for sharing.all my love mina..daughter of mahnaa