The Cafeteria by Isaac Bashevis Singer

The local cafeterianiks.

The neurotic, self-deprecating Jewish New Yorker stereotype—popularized by the likes of Woody Allen and Larry David—can trace its literary roots back to the OG himself, Isaac Bashevis Singer. He's quickly becoming one of my favorite short-story writers.

A few years ago, I read Gimpel the Fool and thoroughly enjoyed it, but The Cafeteria is on a different level. It masterfully balances dark comedy with haunting tragedy—a difficult feat, yet Singer executes it beautifully. The humor, often wry and self-deprecating, never undermines the story’s deeper sorrow; instead, it amplifies the sense of existential bewilderment, making the moments of grief feel even more profound.

There’s a remarkable thematic richness here, offering multiple entry points: the post-WWII Jewish immigrant experience, the lingering and inexpressible trauma of the Holocaust, the supernatural, the tension between religious orthodoxy and modernity to name a few. Singer’s signature wit and absorbing prose carries a frantic, almost feverish energy—full of seemingly random details, tangents, backstories and abrupt shifts in focus. Yet, beneath the disjointed storytelling, there’s a sense of deep cohesion, like a fragmented mosaic where every piece contributes to an intricate, unknowable whole. The narrator is alienated and a displaced immigrant still reeling from the war. He moves through New York City in a daze, caught between self-deprecation and profound despair, struggling to make sense of an irrational world. 

Singer often reframes the Jewish experience through a supernatural lens, and The Cafeteria is no exception. For example, the narrator’s love interest, Esther, who drifts in and out of his life for many years, insists she saw Hitler in their local eatery—the night before it mysteriously burned down. Is it a coincidence or a bout of madness? A buried horror clawing its way back into the present? Her claim is never confirmed or denied, and the narrator becomes more convinced that there might be veracity to her vision:

|"If time and space are nothing more than forms of perception, as Kant argues, and quality, quantity, causality are only categories of thinking, why shouldn't Hitler confer with his Nazis in a cafeteria on Broadway? Esther didn't sound insane. She had seen a piece of reality that the heavenly censorship prohibits as a rule. She had caught a glimpse behind the curtain of the phenomena." |

In that ambiguity lies the true power of this story: the past refuses to stay buried, yet some horrors—like the Holocaust—are so vast and unspeakable that language alone cannot articulate the unresolved trauma. Instead, the trauma manifests itself in the narrative through the supernatural, creating a sense of magical realism. Singer effectively captures the way grief and memory distort perception, turning history into something both inescapable and unfathomable. The Holocaust looms in the background, not as a direct subject but as a spectral force, warping reality itself. Singer doesn’t attempt to provide closure—because there is none. Instead, The Cafeteria captures the way trauma lingers, unspoken yet omnipresent, intruding on daily life in ways that seem absurd, irrational.

I am so impressed with how effortlessly the author balances dark humor with profound tragedy. Singer has this rare ability to make you chuckle at the narrator's rambling neurotic inner-monologues contrasted with the unspeakable grief that permeates the entire story. It is strange, sad, and unnervingly funny all at once—a testament to Singer’s remarkable talents.