More Stories from My Father's Court

Book excerpt: A delightful sequel to a cherished autobiographical collection by the Nobel Laureate In My Father's Court is one of Isaac Bashevis Singer's most affecting autobiographical works. The stories in it, published serially in the Jewish Daily Forward, depict the beth din in his father's home on Krochmalna Street in Warsaw. A unique institution, the beth din was a combined court of law, synagogue, scholarly institution, and psychologist's office where people sought out the advice and counsel of a neighborhood rabbi. The thirty-one stories gathered here, none previously published in English, show this world as it appeared to a young boy: In "A Guest in the Prayerhouse," a man who has converted to Judaism embarrasses the community with his extreme piety; in "She Will Surely Be Ashamed," a couple come for a divorce after forty years of marriage even though they are still in love; in the extraordinary "He Begs Forgiveness," a jeweler apologizes to his former fiancée for abandoning her twelve years before, igniting the imagination of the young Singer, who dreams of writing stories about dark, eternal love. From the earthy to the ethereal, these stories provide an intimate and powerful evocation of a world.