Stories from Different Years

The specificity of Isaac Bashevis-Zinger’s literary gift—who authored a considerable number of novels—reveals itself with surprising fullness also in his stories. He wrote them throughout his creative life, starting in 1923 (that is when his first story was published; at the time the author was 21). The only exception was the period from 1936 to 1943, when I. Bashevis-Zinger did not write any fiction at all.

All the stories, like his works in general, first appeared in Yiddish newspapers and magazines: first in Poland, and then in the USA or Israel. Bashevis-Zinger’s short prose deals with a wide range of topics and is extremely varied in style. Most stories are based on real events and reproduce customs and characters from the life of Eastern European—mostly Polish—Jews before the Catastrophe. There are stories that are perceived as myth or allegory, there are others that resemble legends about love, and some describe extraordinary and extreme circumstances. The setting of some stories is Warsaw, among Jewish bohemians—writers, journalists, actors—tempted by the lures of modern Western culture.

But despite the fact that the place of action in all his stories is either a Jewish shtetl or separate Jewish quarters of a large city, what the author is primarily interested in are not specifically Jewish issues but human, universal ones. Skillfully using the techniques of paradox and grotesque, Bashevis-Zinger exposes the conflict between the divine, the human, and the satanic—and persistently tries to penetrate the mysteries of the nature of things and of human beings. He does not judge, neither justifying nor accusing, and does not offer ready-made recipes.

“Life is full of riddles,” it is said in one of his stories—“and perhaps even Elijah the Prophet will not be able to answer all our questions when he comes to us together with the Messiah. Possibly, the Creator Himself— even He—has not yet resolved all the secrets of the world He created.”

Whether the author turns to his recent past or to the ancient history of his people, his images and descriptions are equally convincing and carry universal significance. What most attracts him is what goes beyond rationality: he investigates feelings, passions, insane and neurotic states—alas, the lot of a person anywhere and at any time. Often, the subject of his works is a romantic attraction that arises between a man and a woman; prevailing over all other impulses, it determines a person’s actions.

Contents:

- The Tale of Tishivitsa
- Gimpel the Simpleton
- Bendit and Dishka
- Tseytl and Rikl
- Secrets of Kabbalah
- Yohid and Yoyhida