July/August 2004

Volume L No. 5

YIDDISH/LADINO ISSUE ARTS AND LETTERS 2 Revaluating Jewish Identity: A Centenary Tribute to Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991) • Joseph Sherman 8 Irving Howe and the Literary Criticism that Matters • Sanford Pinsker 11 What Happened to Itsik Fefer? • I. Century 14 A Buttered Roll and A Slice of Bread: I. L. Peretz and Ignazio Silone • Ruth Gais ARTICLE 16 The End of the Line for the Oldest • Heskel M. Haddad as told to Jewish Community in the World Phyllis Rosenteur 18 “By the Waters of Babylon” • Todd Pitock HISTORY 22 A 16th-Century Italian/Jewish Pilgrim • Henry A. Sosland MEMOIR 24 My Father, the Yiddishist: A Memoir • Si Wakesberg 26 A Hound of Heaven? • Jacob Spivack 28 Yosseleh the Goat • Stanley Herbert Weisberg 31 Crossing Siberia • J. R. Goldberg RADIO PLAY 35 Mazal Bueno: A Portrait in Song of the Spanish Jews • Jane Mushabac FICTION 38 The Jewish Miracle • Moshe Yudl Shelyubsky POETRY 7 In Search of Vagrant Beauty • Charles Fishman 13 Gardeners Both • Troim Katz Handler 21 Klezmer Variations on a Yiddish Theme • Leo Haber 23 Holiness Everywhere • Stephen Bluestone 25 A Thought for Pessoa • Ada Jill Schneider 27 Double Portrait With Wineglass • Lou Barrett 30 As A Child I Loved • Abbott Small 34 Questions • Yehuda Khaver 37 Ladino Concert at Spoleto • Davi Walders 47 Crossing the Field • Julia Watts Belser BOOKS AND AUTHORS 44 Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers: An Intimate Journey Among Hasidic Girls, by Stephanie Wellen Levine • George Jochnowitz 46 Only Yesterday, by S. Y. Agnon • Haim Chertok