The Muses of Bashevis Singer

The Muses of Isaac Bashevis Singer (2014) is an Israeli documentary written and directed by Shaul Betser and Asaf Galay.

Isaac Bashevis Singer was a brilliant author and Nobel Prize laureate. Singer wrote in his native Yiddish, so his work needed translation. However, contrary to what most people--including me--thought, he himself did the rough translations into English. He then hired "translators," who didn't actually translate, but who "cleaned up" and improved Singer's English translations.

What we learn from this movie is that Singer rarely used the same translator more than once or twice. Each translator was a beautiful young woman, and, apparently, sex with the author was part of the job description. Dozens of young women provided sex for Singer, despite the fact that he was married. His wife surely knew about this, but she chose to look the other way.

With any celebrity, the question arises about whether to expect them to conform to societal norms. If they don't, do we have a right to reject the celebrity? Was Tiger Woods a worse athlete because he had multiple sexual partners despite being married? Should we care about the private lives of Woods or Singer?

In Singer's case, I think the less of him as a person. However, I believe he was a genius, and the world simply cannot afford to reject his work, which describes a culture that no longer exists. The Eastern European Jewish culture that Singer described was destroyed, and it will never return. Singer was an idol with feet of clay, but he remains an idol to me despite this.

We saw this film at the JCC Hart Theatre in Rochester, as part of the marvelous Rochester International Jewish Film Festival. It will work very well on the small screen.