Visiting Jerusalem in 1969, Isaac Bashevis

Singer is approached in the vicinity of the Wall

by an American who introduces himself as Jo-

seph Shapiro, a man who has a story to tell.

Singer guesses that he is a baal tshuve, a penitent.

Yes, he tells the author, "bad tshuve means one

who returns, l came back home." The Penitent,

the story of Joseph Shapiro, is Singer s latest

novel. Originally published in Yiddish as Der

Baal Tshuve, the novel was immediately recog-

nized by its readers as one of Singer s most seri-

ous, and perhaps finest, works. Because of its

inwardness, somc critics predicted it would

never bc translated: "It will likely never be read

in the many languagcs his other works have

been translated into," wrote a reviewer in Jew-

ish Life. But as a key work in the oeuvre of this

winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, The

Penitent is now made available.

l-he story begins with Joseph Shapiro s rapid

climb to prosperity in postwar America, his

quick plunge into promiscuity, and his subse-

quent flight to Israel. He wants to escape from

his unfaithful wife, (, ella; his nagging mistress,

l,iza, and her money-mad daughter, Micki. On

the plane he has a comic encounter with the at-

tractive Priscilla, who reappears later in the tale.

On his arrival in Tel Aviv he finds that much of

modern Israel is little more than an extension of

America: worship of the Golden Calf is world-

wide. Only in the orthodox scetion of Jerusa-

lem, Meah Shearim, does Shapiro begin to find