Israel Zangwill

Israel Zangwill (1864–1926) was an Anglo-Jewish writer and activist best known today for his 1892 novel, Children of the Ghetto. He came to be called the “Jewish Dickens” for his work documenting East End Jewish life. He wrote journal articles, novels, plays, and short fiction; the title of his most famous play, The Melting Pot, became the standard metaphor for American multiculturalism. He developed a hybrid literary identity, working as both a British and Jewish writer. Zangwill was born in London’s East End to Moses and Ellen Marks Zangwill, who immigrated to London from Latvia and Poland, respectively. The Zangwills were part of a wave of Jewish immigrants fleeing pogroms across Eastern Europe. Zangwill’s early childhood was spent in Plymouth and Bristol, but his family moved back to Whitechapel when he was eight. Memories of his life in Whitechapel formed the basis for his iconic Anglo-Jewish novel, Children of the Ghetto. In London, he became a pupil teacher at the Jews’ Free School and attended London University. Zangwill left his teaching position in 1888, possibly because of conflict over the novel The Premier and the Painter, which he cowrote with Louis Cowen under the pseudonym J. Freeman Bell. In 1890, Zangwill founded the short-lived comic magazine Ariel, or the London Puck. While he was subeditor for the weekly English-language Orthodox newspaper the Jewish Standard, he wrote a weekly satirical column, “Morour and Charouseth,” under the pseudonym Marshallik, the Jewish court jester. Before the publication of Children of the Ghetto, he was best known as a satirical writer and a member of Jerome K. Jerome’s New Humour group. He also wrote columns for the Pall Mall Gazette and the New York–based newspaper Critic. He took on a leading role in pacifist, Zionist, and women’s suffrage movements. In 1903, he married Edith Ayrton, who was a novelist and women’s rights activist in her own right. Zangwill met Theodor Herzl during Herzl’s visit to London in 1895, but upon Herzl’s death in 1905, Zangwill split from the Zionist movement and established the Jewish Territorial Organization, which advocated establishing a Jewish homeland outside Palestine. His criticism of Zionist organizations in the 1920s led to his declining popularity toward the end of his life.