ABSTRACT
Though the product of a similar Polish-Hasidic upbringing to that of Y. Y. Trunk and, within a decade, his contemporary, Isaac Bashevis Singer turns to folklore and legend for antithetical ideological and artistic ends. So far from seeking a reconciliation of Jews to a secular world, or from reflecting a passive resignation to a Jewish lot that cannot be amended, Singer's reworking of the pope myth militantly disidentifies itself from the assimilationism encouraged by the heirs of the Haskalah. Through a series of devastating ironies, Singer radically subverts the traditional materials of the Jewish pope myth. In his reworking of the pope myth, the Jewish genius hungry for Christian glory that Singer sets up seems at first to have inherited all those distinctions most esteemed by devout Jews. Citing the Jews' ungrateful treatment of Moses and the Prophets, the yetser-hore concludes that, in regard to groyskayt, 'greatness', der amenivkhor hot faynt, 'the Chosen People hate', while Gentiles hobn lib, 'love'.
