I. J. Singer

Israel Joshua Singer
Israel Joshua Singer photographed by Carl Van Vechten in 1938
Born	(1893-11-30)November 30, 1893 Biłgoraj, Congress Poland
Died	February 10, 1944(1944-02-10) (aged 50) New York City, US
Occupation	Novelist
Language	Yiddish
Ethnicity	Polish Jew
Citizenship	United States
Genre	fictional prose
Notable works	The Brothers Ashkenazi

Israel Joshua Singer (Yiddish: ישראל יהושע ; November 30, 1893, Biłgoraj, Congress Poland — February 10, 1944 New York) was a Polish American novelist who wrote in Yiddish. He was born Yisruel Yehoyshye Zinger, the son of Pinchas Mendl Zinger, a rabbi and author of rabbinic commentaries, and Basheva Zylberman. He was the brother of author Isaac Bashevis Singer and novelist Esther Kreitman. He married Genia Kuper. His eldest son, Yasha, died of influenza before the family's emigration to America. His younger son, Joseph Singer was the translator for both his father's works and his uncle, Isaac Bashevis Singer. Joseph a painter and writer like his father married June Flaum Singer who went on to become a writer. They had four children: Sharon Salinger, Brett Singer, IJ Singer and Valerie Singer. The three daughters followed in the family business and are also published poets and novelists.

Singer contributed to the European Yiddish press from 1916. In 1921, after Abraham Cahan noticed his story Pearls, Singer became a correspondent for the American Yiddish newspaper The Forward. His short story Liuk appeared in 1924, illuminating the ideological confusion of the Bolshevik Revolution. He wrote his first novel, Steel and Iron, in 1927. In 1934 he emigrated to the United States. He died of a heart attack at age 50 in New York City in 1944.

His memoir Fun a velt vos iz nishto mer (English: Of a World That is No More) was published posthumously in 1946. His other works include:

In the introduction to A Treasury of Yiddish Stories, Irving Howe and Eliezer Greenberg stated that Singer's books are organized "in a way that satisfies the usual Western expectations as to literary structure. His novels resemble the kind of family chronicle popular in Europe several decades ago [that is, the turn of the century]".