Isaac Singer and the Threat of America

Isaac Bashevis Singer is a writer who seems tied to the past and the distant, mythic regions of Eastern Europe. But he is also a writer who has written extensively about America in Enemies: A Love Story, The Penitent, and the posthumously published Meshugah and Shadows on the Hudson. This essay discusses his depiction of America and its effect on Jews. He sees Jews being transformed by their experiences here in America and fears what will happen if Jewishness disappears under the pressure of a materialistic culture of the kind America and the modern world seem to offer.