In My Father'S Court

In this autobiographical work, specifically mentioned in his Nobel Prize citation, Isaac Bashevis 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 dally visit the rabbi in his study. In a world on the brink of modernity, Singer's gentle, learned father and his mother, equally pious but rather more practical, maintain a stubbornly traditional existence. In My Father's Court is a tribute to their efforts, and a wonderful evocation of growing up in early twentieth-century Warsaw.