Editing Isaac Bashevis Singer (section)

==Views and opinions==
===Judaism===
Singer's relationship to Judaism was complex and unconventional. He identified as a skeptic and a loner, though he felt a connection to his Orthodox roots. Ultimately, he developed a view of religion and philosophy which he called "private mysticism". As he put it, "Since God was completely unknown and eternally silent, He could be endowed with whatever traits one elected to hang upon Him."<ref>Grace Farrell, ''Isaac Bashevis Singer: Conversations'', p. 236, University Press of Mississippi, 1992.</ref>{{Sfn | Singer | 1984 | p = 99}}

Singer was raised Orthodox and learned all the Jewish prayers, studied Hebrew and learned Torah and Talmud. As he recounted in the autobiographical short story "In My Father's Court", he broke away from his parents in his early twenties. Influenced by his older brother, who had done the same, he began spending time with non-religious Bohemian artists in Warsaw. Although Singer believed in a God, as in traditional Judaism, he stopped attending Jewish religious services of any kind, even on the High Holy Days. He struggled throughout his life with the feeling that a kind and compassionate God would never support the great suffering he saw around him, especially the [[Holocaust]] deaths of so many of the Polish Jews from his childhood. In one interview with the photographer Richard Kaplan, he said, "I am angry at God because of what happened to my brothers": Singer's older brother died suddenly in February 1944, in New York, of a [[thrombosis]]; his younger brother perished in Soviet Russia around 1945, after being deported with his mother and wife to Southern [[Kazakhstan]] in Stalin's purges.

Despite the complexities of his religious outlook, Singer lived in the midst of the Jewish community throughout his life. He did not seem to be comfortable unless he was surrounded by Jews; particularly Jews born in Europe. Although he spoke English, [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], and [[Polish language|Polish]] fluently, he always considered [[Yiddish]] his natural tongue. He always wrote in Yiddish and he was the last notable American author to be writing in this language. After he had achieved success as a writer in New York, Singer and his wife began spending time during the winters in Miami with its Jewish community, many of them New Yorkers.

Eventually, as senior citizens, they moved to Miami. They identified closely with the [[Ashkenazi]] Jewish community. After his death, Singer was buried in a traditional Jewish ceremony in a Jewish cemetery in Paramus, New Jersey.

===Vegetarianism===
Singer was a prominent [[Jewish vegetarian]]<ref>{{Citation |publisher=IVU |url=http://www.ivu.org/history/northam20b/singer.html |title=History of Vegetarianism |contribution=Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904–1991) |access-date=February 18, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081222210007/http://www.ivu.org/history/northam20b/singer.html |archive-date=December 22, 2008 |url-status=dead}}.</ref> for the last 35 years of his life and often included vegetarian themes in his works. In his short story "The Slaughterer", he described the anguish of an appointed slaughterer trying to reconcile his compassion for animals with his job of killing them. He felt that the ingestion of meat was a denial of all ideals and all religions: "How can we speak of right and justice if we take an innocent creature and shed its blood?" When asked if he had become a vegetarian for health reasons, he replied: "I did it for the health of the chickens."

Vegetarianism is a recurrent theme in Singer's novel ''Enemies, a Love Story''. One character, a Holocaust survivor, declares that "God himself eats meat—human flesh. There are no vegetarians—none. If you had seen what I have seen, you would know that God approves of slaughter,"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Singer |first=Isaac Bashevis |title=Enemies, a Love Story |publisher=Noonday Press |year=1972 |isbn=0374515220 |pages=33}}</ref> and another character points out "that what the Nazis had done to the Jews, man was doing to animals."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Singer |first=Isaac Bashevis |title=Enemies, a Love Story |publisher=Noonday Press |year=1972 |isbn=0374515220 |pages=145}}</ref> In ''The Letter Writer'', Singer wrote "In relation to [animals], all people are Nazis; for the animals, it is an eternal [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]],"{{Sfn | Singer| 1982|p = 271}} which became a classic reference in the [[Holocaust analogy in animal rights|comparison of animal exploitation with the Holocaust]].<ref name=Patterson>Patterson, Charles (2002). ''[[Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust]]''. New York: Lantern Books, pp. 181–188.</ref>

In the preface to Steven Rosen's ''Food for Spirit: Vegetarianism and the World Religions'' (1986), Singer wrote, "When a human kills an animal for food, he is neglecting his own hunger for justice. Man prays for mercy, but is unwilling to extend it to others. Why should man then expect mercy from God? It's unfair to expect something that you are not willing to give. It is inconsistent. I can never accept inconsistency or injustice. Even if it comes from God. If there would come a voice from God saying, 'I'm against vegetarianism!' I would say, 'Well, I am for it!' This is how strongly I feel in this regard."

===Politics===
Singer described himself as "[[conservative]]," adding that "I don't believe by flattering the masses all the time we really achieve much."<ref>{{Citation |jstor=25304019 |volume=31 |number=4 |date=Spring 1980 |page=57 |last1=Burgin |first1=Richard |title=A Conversation with Isaac Bashevis Singer |journal=Chicago Review |last2=Singer |first2=Isaac Bashevis |doi=10.2307/25304019|hdl=2027/spo.act2080.0017.002 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> His conservative side was most apparent in his Yiddish writing and journalism, where he was openly hostile to [[Marxist]] sociopolitical agendas. In ''[[Forverts]]'' he once wrote, "It may seem like terrible ''apikorses'' [heresy], but conservative governments in America, England, France, have handled Jews no worse than liberal governments.... The Jew's worst enemies were always those elements that the modern Jew convinced himself (really hypnotized himself) were his friends."<ref name=yivo>{{Citation |url=http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Singer_Isaac_Bashevis |contribution=Singer, Isaac Bashevis |title=The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe}}.</ref>{{Sfn|Hadda|1997|pp=137–38}}

===Zionism===
[[File:The typewriter of Isaac Beshevis Singer.jpg|thumb|The typewriter that Singer used during his visits to Israel in the 1970s]]Issac Bashevis was ambivalent on the question of [[Zionism]], and he viewed the immigration of Jews to Palestine critically. As a Polish Jew from Warsaw, he was historically confronted with the question of the Jewish fate during Nazi persecution. He exercised social responsibility towards the immigration of European and American Jewish groups to Israel after [[World War II]]. Strictly based on Jewish family doctrine rather than politics and socialism, his former partner Runya Pontsch and his son Israel Zamir immigrated to Palestine in 1938, in order to live a typical [[kibbutz]] life there. In his story ''The Certificate'' (1967), which has autobiographical character, he fictionalizes this question from a time in the mid-1920s when he was himself considering moving to the [[British Mandate Palestine]]. The protagonist of the story decides to leave Palestine, however, to move back into his shtetl. For Singer then, Zionism becomes the "road not taken". However, through his journalistic assignments in late 1955, Singer made his first trip to Israel, accompanied by his wife Alma. Describing the trip to his Yiddish readers, he introduces the world for the first time to the young state of Israel. In a change of mind, he then describes the Land of Israel as a "reality, and part of everyday life." Interestingly enough, he notes the cultural tensions between [[Sephardic]] and [[Ashkenazi]] Jewish people during the boat trip from [[Naples]] to [[Haifa]] and during his stay in the new nation. With the description of Jewish immigration camps in the new land, he foresaw the difficulties and socio-economic tensions in Israel, and hence turned back to his critical views of Zionism. He scrutinized the ideology further, as he was advancing his thought of critical Zionism.<ref>David Stromberg (June 12, 2018 ). [https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/faith-place-isaac-bashevis-singer-israel/ "Faith in Place: Isaac Bashevis Singer in Israel"]. lareviewofbooks.org. Retrieved May 13, 2021.</ref><ref>Sale Roger (November 2, 1975). [https://www.nytimes.com/1975/11/02/archives/isaac-bashevis-singer-also-known-as-i-passions.html Isaac Bashevis Singer, also known as 'I'] ''The New Work Times''. Retrieved May 13, 2021.</ref>