SOURCE: Kaminsky, Alice R. “Gimpel.” In Fools and Jesters in Literature, Art, and History: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook, edited by Vicki K. Janik, pp. 215-19. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998.

In the following essay, Kaminsky views Singer's short story “Gimpel the Fool” as part of the “schlemiel tradition” in Yiddish literature.

Background

Isaac Bashevis Singer (July 14, 1904–July 24, 1991) was born in Leoncin, Poland, the son of a rabbi, Pinchos-Mendel Singer, and a rabbi's daughter, Bathsheba Zylberman. He lived in Warsaw and was a proofreader for a Yiddish literary magazine, which helped inspire him in 1917 to write in Yiddish himself. In 1935 he moved to New York City and became a free-lance writer for the Yiddish newspaper the Jewish Daily Forward. His first wife gave him his only son, Isaac. He lived the rest of his life with his second wife Alma. In 1933 he began to write the novels and stories that earned...