Singer's short story "Yentl, the Yesiva Boy" became Barbra Streisand's award-winning Yentl. Singer's verdict? "I did not find artistic merit -- neither in the adaptation, nor in the directing," he declared. "There was too much singing, much too much."

[Though expected to become a Hasidic rabbi, Singer joined his older brother (I. J. Singer) as a writer in New York.]