SOURCE: "Notes and Readings," in Prooftexts, Vol. 2, No. 3, September, 1982, pp. 313-21.

In the following essay, Wolitz contrasts Isaac Bashevis Singer's 1931 short story "Yordim" with Bergelson's 1919 story of the same name.

I wouldn't say I feel myself a part of the Yiddish tradition. Somehow I always wanted to write in my own way, and I never felt that I was somebody's disciple .. . I would almost say that I tried to create my own tradition, if one could use such words.

I. B. Singer

Isaac Bashevis Singer launched an open attack on Dovid Bergelson's last major work, Baym Dnieper (At the Dnieper), in the November 1932 issue of Globus, the Warsaw journal in which three months later would appear Singer's now famous Satan in Goray. Singer, a young ambitious author, had many bones to pick with Bergelson, the most sophisticated Yiddish writer of the day: his established fame, his admired literary...