Announcing the February–March 2022 topic challenge: the works of Isaac Bashevis Singer

Question

In accordance with our meta agreement to have topic challenges and a later meta agreement to have topic challenges lasting for two months and overlapping by one month, it is time to announce the February–March 2022 topic challenge.

Based on the number of votes (+5), the next topic challenge of the year 2022 will be

the works of Isaac Bashevis Singer

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What's a topic challenge?

See the meta posts linked above, and also this main Meta post. In short, during February and March 2022 you are invited to try to read at least one work by the American science fiction and fantasy author and ask questions about it.

Participation is not obligatory in any sense, and questions on other works are more than welcome during February and March too; they just won't count as part of this topic challenge.

How can I take part?

By getting hold of the one or more works by Isaac Bashevis Singer and asking good questions about it (or them). Questions about these works should be tagged with isaac-bashevis-singer, yiddish-literature and a tag for the work's title (for book-length works). We'll keep a list of all such questions in an answer to this meta post.

Below is Tsundoku's presentation, written after a suggestion by Mithical:

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902 – 1991) was a Polish-American writer who wrote in Yiddish and who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978. He wrote both novels and short stories:

• Satan in Goray (novel, 1935; uses the mid-17th-century Khmelnytsky Uprising as background).
• The Magician of Lublin (1960, possibly his best known novel).
• Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories (1966, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak).
• A Day of Pleasure: Stories of a Boy Growing up in Warsaw (autobiographical work, 1969).
• A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories (1973).
  Alfred Kazin's review in the The New York Times said, "Isaac Bashevis Singer is an extraordinary writer. And this new collection of stories, like so much that he writes, represents the most delicate imaginative splendor, wit, mischief and, not least, the now unbelievable life that Jews once lived in Poland"

What's next?

• Vote for the next topic challenge (March–April), or propose your own!

Answer 1

List of all questions posted in this topic challenge

1. What happened at the end of "The Key" by Isaac Bashevis Singer? by Mithical, 01/02/2022 (4 votes, 48 views, 0 answers);
2. What do the names of Yasha's animals in "The Magician of Lublin" say about him? by Mithical, 02/02/2022 (3 view, 44 views, 0 answers);
3. What does "emancipated" mean in this context in Isaac Bashevis Singer's "Guests on a Winter Night"? by Mithical, 03/02/2022 (4 votes, 53 views, 1 answer);
4. What's the significance of the colors in this song in "The Magician of Lublin"? by Mithical, 04/02/2022 (3 votes, 27 views, 0 answers);
5. Why does Yasha feel guilty here in "The Magician of Lublin"? by Mithical, 05/02/2022 (2 votes, 21 views, 0 answers);
6. Why is "The Heritage of the Deer" specifically mentioned here in Isaac Bashevis Singer's "Guests on a Winter Night"? by Mithical, 06/02/2022 (3 votes, 41 views, 1 deleted answer);
7. What prompted Yasha to commit to Emilia all of a sudden? by Mithical, 07/02/2022 (2 votes, 12 views, 0 answers);
8. How do Emilia's beliefs about dreams reflect on her in "The Magician of Lublin"? by Mithical, 08/02/2022 (1 vote, 12 views, 0 answers);
9. Is this instance of "little girl" a translation error in "The Magician of Lublin"? by Mithical, 09/02/2022 (4 votes, 61 views, 1 answer);
10. What's the significance of saying "thou", and where does Emilia actually say it in "The Magician of Lublin"? by Mithical, 10/02/2022 (4 votes, 51 views, 1 answer);
11. Why is Dr Beeber afraid of being forgiven in Isaac Bashevis Singer's "Dr Beeber"? by Mithical, 11/02/2022 (2 votes, 21 views, 1 answer);
12. Why is Professor Eibeschutz ashamed of the "religious implications" of the phrase "Thank God"? by Mithical, 12/02/2022 (2 votes, 72 views, 2 answers);
13. What do the "Evil Spirits" have to do with a house becoming leprous? by Mithical, 13/02/2022 (3 votes, 20 views, 0 answers);
14. Why are these biblical scenes mentioned in italics and title case in "Satan in Goray"? by Mithical, 14/02/2022 (0 votes [+2 -2], 64 views, 1 answer);
15. What does "pilpul" refer to in "Satan in Goray"? by Mithical, 15/02/2022 (4 votes, 49 views, 1 answer);
16. Why are the peasants referred to as the "children of Ham" in "Satan in Goray"? by Mithical, 16/02/2022 (2 votes, 26 views, 0 answers);
17. How closely do the events in "Satan in Goray" mirror the actual Shabbtai Tzvi events? by Mithical, 17/02/2022 (2 votes, 16 views, 0 answers);
18. What's happening at the end of "Pigeons" by Isaac Bashevis Singer? by Mithical, 18/02/2022 (1 vote, 16 views, 0 answers);
19. Why does Singer refer to the name of God in "Satan in Goray"? by Mithical, 19/02/2022 (2 votes, 31 views, 0 answers);
20. What's the importance of "cemetery grass" hair in Singer's "The Primper"? by Mithical, 20/02/2022 (3 votes, 51 views, 1 answer);
21. Why does the band follow Rechele to the bathhouse before her wedding? by Mithical, 21/02/2022 (6 votes, 57 views, 1 answer);
22. Is there any significance to the dances that the girls perform in "Satan in Goray"? by Mithical, 22/02/2022 (5 votes, 25 views, 0 answers);
23. Why does the fool recite this depressing verse at the wedding in "Satan in Goray"? by Mithical, 23/02/2022 (4 votes, 313 views, HNQ, 1 answer);
24. Why is Levi pale with the "fear of punishment" that he and not Ozer is acting as Rabbi in "Satan in Goray"? by Mithical, 24/02/2022 (1 vote, 21 views, 0 answers);
25. What does "head cut off with no knife" mean in "Satan in Goray"? by Mithical, 25/02/2022 (3 votes, 35 views, 0 answers);
26. Why does "Satan in Goray" mention that Levi supports Sabbatai Zevi so many times? by Mithical, 26/02/2022 (2 votes, 20 views, 0 answers);
27. What does Oyzer-Dovidl's dream about Nechele mean in Singer's "The Riddle"? by Mithical, 27/02/2022 (2 votes, 15 views, 1 answers);
28. What does the name "Hodel" mean? by Mithical, 28/02/2022 (3 votes, 50 views, 1 answer);
29. What's the significance of Schloimele looking unrecognizable at the end of Isaac Bashevis Singer's "Schloimele"? by Mithical, 01/03/2022 (1 vote, 13 views, 0 answers);
30. Is Schloimele gay-coded in Singer's "Schloimele"? by Mithical, 02/03/2022 (3 votes, 25 views, 0 answers);
31. Why does Sylvia's kiss cause swelling in Isaac Bashevis Singer's "Schloimele"? by Mithical, 03/03/2022 (2 votes, 15 views, 0 answers);
32. Why would the young scholar who was obsessed with Maimonides become an unbeliever in Singer's "The Primper"? by Mithical, 04/03/2022 (2 votes, 14 views, 1 answer);
33. What's the point of having both Cybula and Krol Rudy assault Yagoda in the beginning of "The King of the Fields"? by Mithical, 05/03/2022 (2 votes, 15 views, 0 answers);
34. Why does Krol Rudy care about spilling the blood of animals so much? by Mithical, 06/03/2022 (4 votes, 26 views, 0 answers);
35. How can we approach analyzing Singer's treatment of race in his works? by Mithical, 07/03/2022 (3 votes, 27 views, 0 answers);
36. Lack of closure as a theme in the works of Isaac Bashevis Singer by Mithical, 08/03/2022 (2 votes, 30 views, 0 answers);
37. What does the culture of Europe have to do with Yasha needing to acquire a large sum of money? by Mithical, 09/03/2022 (2 votes, 42 views, 1 answer).

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The highest-voted of these is Why does the band follow Rechele to the bathhouse before her wedding?, with a score of 6 at the end of March.

The most viewed is Why does the fool recite this depressing verse at the wedding in "Satan in Goray"?, with approximately 313 views during the months of February and March (view count checked on 2 April). This was the only question that went HNQ.

Mithical submitted a legendary number of questions, namely 37, the highest number of any topic challenge so far.

15 answers were submitted. Answers were submitted by Mike (4 answers, including a deleted answer to the second question), Sean Duggan (3 answers), Alex (3 answers), Mary (2 answers), Spagirl (2 answers) and Michael Harvey (1 answer).