SOURCE: Roskies, David G. “The Demon as Storyteller: Isaac Bashevis Singer.” A Bridge of Longing: The Lost Art of Yiddish Storytelling, pp. 266-306. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.

In the following essay, Roskies analyses Singer's work in the context of his Yiddish background, focusing particularly on his use of the image of the devil in his writing.

If Hell exists, everything exists. If you are real, He is real. 

—I. B. Singer, 1943

Nothing is more Jewish than a Jewish demon. What the golden-haired Lorelei are to the Rhine, the dark-haired sheydim are to the Jewish home, creeping out from behind the stove on a Sabbath afternoon, when the household is away at prayers. From birth until death a Jew must contend with these sheydim, who eat and drink just like humans; with ruḥin, disembodied spirits, and with lilin, who are possessed of human form but also have wings...