Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902–1991)

His first book and, of all the ones I’ve read by him, I’m sorry to say this one is easily the least impressive. Reading this when it came out, one would imagine he was a writer to watch, a writer with things to say, but this isn’t the book where he comes into his own. The story tells about the effects on a tiny, remote shtetl in Poland in the 17th century when a wave of hysteria over the claims of Sabbatai Zvi—claiming to be the messiah—were taken quite literally throughout parts of Eastern Europe. People begin to neglect or even invert their traditional religious practices and abandon their moral precepts--and soon even their daily lives--in preparation for the coming apocalypse when Zvi would lead them to salvation.I am Jewish and reasonably conversant with Jewish beliefs and liturgy and practices and although I understood many things, just as many were beyond me. I don’t know that such knowledge or familiarity is essential but this often was a difficult book for me, one that the “later” Singer, I think, would have written differently.… (more)

A collection of very Jewish children's stories with illustrations by Maurice Sendak. The title and final story was the best. Young Aaron must take the old family goat, Zlateh, to the butcher's in the next town. They get caught in a blizzard and survive for 3 days inside a haystack. Aaron lives on the goat's milk and the goat of course lives off the hay. They return home after the storm, and the life-saving goat is then forever after welcome in the house and treated like a sibling. "Maaaa," is all she says. Yes, I loved her.… (more)