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Sulamith Ish-Kishor

American writer (1896–1977)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ7635987 ↗
Source-derived summary

Sulamith Ish-kishor (1896 – June 23, 1977) was an American writer, known for her religious and children's literature.

Biography

She was born in London, England, one of eight children of Ephraim and Fanny Ish-Kishor. Her father was a well-known writer of Jewish children's literature and an early proponent of Hovevei Zion, a pre-Zionist movement, and later of political Zionism. Her older sister, Judith Ish-Kishor, was a pioneering writer of Jewish children's literature in English.

Sulamith began writing at age 5 and had several of her poems printed in British publications by the time she was 10. When Sulamith was 13, her family moved to New York City (like the family in her novel Our Eddie).

At Hunter College, she studied languages and history.

She wrote widely, and was published in several magazines, including The New Yorker, Saturday Review, and Reader's Digest. Her now-classic story of a long-distance correspondence and its fateful conclusion, "Appointment with Love," was published in a 1943 edition of Collier's and was subsequently plagiarized by preacher-author Max Lucado (as "The Rose") in a 1992 collection.

Our Eddie was a 1970 Newbery Honor book.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Sulamith Ish-Kishor” is american writer (1896–1977). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Sulamith, Ish-Kishor and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1896, 1977, 1943, 1992—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1896-01-01. For this dossier, Sulamith, Ish-Kishor and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american writer (1896–1977)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7635987. VIAF identifies the subject as 39852633. The Library of Congress control number is n50081750. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1896, 1977, 1943 and 1992.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Sulamith Ish-Kishor”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Sulamith Ish-Kishor primary sources, Sulamith Ish-Kishor archive and Sulamith research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Sulamith Ish-Kishor”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Sulamith Ish-Kishor” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.