Israel Shenker
Israel Shenker, (Jan. 6, 1925 - June 9, 2007) was a scholar, and a reporter for The New York Times.
Life
Shenker was born in Philadelphia on Jan. 6, 1925. As a boy, he read the entire Book of Knowledge, a 20-volume children’s encyclopedia. When he was finished, he read it again. Enrolling at the University of Pennsylvania, Shenker did not attend classes because he did not need to. He passed his time in the library, turning up in the classroom only for exams. After interrupting his studies to serve with the Army Air Corps in World War II, he received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the university in 1947. In 1951 Shenker married Mary Sagman. They had two children; Susie Zirkel and Mark.
Journalism
From 1968 to 1979, Shenker was a reporter on the metropolitan staff of The Times. Among the notable figures he interviewed over the years were Jorge Luis Borges, Noam Chomsky, M. C. Escher, John Kenneth Galbraith, Marcel Marceau, Groucho Marx, Vladimir Nabokov, S. J. Perelman, Picasso, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and Isaac Bashevis Singer.
Shenker was known in particular for his coverage of letters, lexicography and languages, especially Yiddish, to which he retained an ardent lifelong attachment. In later years, in ostensible retirement, he wrote freelance articles for The Times on European travel.[1]
Published work
- In the Footsteps of Johnson and Boswell (Houghton Mifflin, 1982)
- Coat of Many Colors: Pages From Jewish Life (Doubleday, 1985).