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February 13, 2020

The Other Great Yiddish Novelist Named I. Singer, and His Lesson for Our Time

I.J. Singer’s The Brothers Ashkenazi.

No Yiddish writer is as well known to today’s English-reading public as Isaac Bashevis Singer, but his entrance into the Yiddish literary scene was preceded by that of his elder brother Israel Jacob Singer, whom Dara Horn and many others believe to have been the greater talent. In his 1935 novel The Brothers Ashkenazi, I.J. Singer tells the story of the titular twin brothers, Simcha Meyer and Jacob Bunim; the former is brilliant and ruthless, the latter dull but charming and handsome. At the book’s end, set in the aftermath of World War I, the brothers return from Russia to their native Poland, which has recently gained its independence. Horn finds in the final scene wisdom for the Jews of today:

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