The Spinoza of Market Street

short stories by Singer
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Also known as: “Der Spinozist”

The Spinoza of Market Street, title story of a short-story collection by Isaac Bashevis Singer, published in Yiddish in 1944 as “Der Spinozist.” The collection was published in English in 1961. The story is set in Warsaw on the brink of World War I. There Dr. Nahum Fischelson lives a meagre, isolated existence alone in an attic room overlooking teeming Market Street. An intellectual supported by an annuity from the Jewish community of Berlin, he devotes his energies to explicating the philosophical works of the 17th-century Dutch Jewish philosopher Benedict de Spinoza, descending to the street only once a week ...(100 of 225 words)