Nobel Prize-winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer (1903-1991), who grew up in a strictly Orthodox Hasidic household in Poland, presents a version of the legend surrounding the 18th century founder of Hasidism known as the Baal Shem Tov.

Singer was a Polish-born Jewish-American author of short stories, novels, essays, cultural criticism, memoirs, and stories for children. His career spanned nearly seven decades of literary production, at the center of which was the translation of his work from Yiddish into English, which he undertook with various collaborators and editors. Known for fiction that portrayed 19th-century Polish Jewry as well as supernatural tales that combined Jewish mysticism with demonology, Singer was a master storyteller whose sights were set squarely on the tension between human nature and the human spirit.

The illustrations are by the Polish American artist Ira Moskovitz (1912 -2001), who is known for his Southwest influenced art, Judaica, and printmaking. He often collaborated with Isaac Bashevis Singer, illustrating his acclaimed books and fanciful tales about Eastern European Jewish life at the turn of the century.