The Yiddish Book Center's

Wexler Oral History Project

A growing collection of in-depth interviews with people of all ages and backgrounds, whose stories about the legacy and changing nature of Yiddish language and culture offer a rich and complex chronicle of Jewish identity.

Saying Kaddish For I.J. Singer

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Israel Zamir, son of Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer, remembers mistaking his uncle Israel Joshua Singer's death for his father's and saying Kaddish for him.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Israel Zamir.

This excerpt is in English.

Israel Zamir was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1929. Israel died in 2014.

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This interview is part of the Beyond the Books: Yiddish writers and their descendants series.

Other video highlights from this oral history

Childhood and Abandonment

4 min 4 sec

The Brothers Singer

5 min 46 sec

Israel Zamir Recalls Living in the Soviet Union

7 min 8 sec

"He Meant Nothing To Me”: Israel Zamir Reflects On 20 Years Apart from His Father, Isaac Bashevis Singer

4 min 15 sec

Family Reunion: Meeting His Father, Isaac Bashevis Singer, After Twenty Years of Separation

7 min 7 sec

Breaking Down Walls: Overcoming the Distance Between My Father Bashevis Singer and Me

5 min 18 sec

"He Was In Love With Mr. Isaac Bashevis Singer”: Israel Zamir Describes His Father

1 min 33 sec

A Process of Re-Writing: On Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Process of Translation

2 min 7 sec

Coming to America: A Labor Zionist's Perspective

2 min 29 sec

Israel Zamir Recalls Attending His Father Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Nobel Prize Ceremony

8 min 52 sec

Having Bashevis as a Father

1 min 46 sec

The Ice Cream Incident: Israel Zamir Remembers Antisemitism in Warsaw

2 min 9 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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