The Travels of Bashevis in the Land of Israel

At the end of 1955, Isaac Bashevis Singer visited Israel for the first time. For several months, he traveled in the young State and wrote about his experiences for the Yiddish Forverts in New York. This book is the first translation of these notes. Bashevis looked at Israel with a mixture of love and criticism. His notes are full of romantic excitement about biblical landscapes and modern cities. At the same time, he does not hesitate to describe the social inequities between varios sectors of Israel. For better or worse, Bashevis understood well that “the ingathering of the [Jewish] exiles is impossible without a lot of tolerance.”

Isaac Bashevis Singer was among the greatest Yiddish writers, and won the Novel Prize for Literature in 1978. He grew up in Warsaw in a rabbinic family and immigrated to America in 1935, where he published short stories, novels, memoirs, and essays. Many of his writings have been translated into English and other languages.