In My Father's Court

In this autobiographical work, specifically mentioned in Isaac Bashevis Singer's Nobel Prize citation, Singer remembers his childhood in Warsaw, and especially the bet din, or Jewish court, in his father's home on working-class Krochmalna Street. Advice seekers and petitioners making wills or seeking marriage settlements visit the rabbi daily in his study. In a world on the brink of modernity, Singer's gentle, learned father and his mother, equally pious but eminently practical, maintain a stubbornly traditional existence. In My Father's Court is a tribute to their efforts, and a fine evocation of life in early twentieth-century Warsaw.