Controversy still swirls around Singer

NEW YORK, June 17 (UPI) -- Controversy regarding the value of Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer's work rages on as his centennial approaches, The New York Times said Thursday.

Singer was the first Yiddish writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978, however, many scholars argue other Yiddish writers were more deserving of the award.

"When Abraham Sutzkever was starving, fighting Nazis with the partisans

in the Lithuanian woods and writing great Yiddish poetry about the

tragic fate of the Jews on fragments of bark, Singer was eating cheese

blintzes at Famous Dairy Restaurant on 72nd Street and thinking about

Polish whores and Yiddish devils," said Allan Nadler, director of Jewish Studies at Drew University and former director of research at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

Numerous cultural and educational institutions are, however, planning retrospectives and celebrations honoring Singer.