Israel Zangwill (21 January 18641 August 1926) was a British author at the forefront of Zionism during the late 19th century, and as such was a close associate of Theodor Herzl. He later rejected the search for a Jewish homeland in Palestine and became the prime thinker behind the Jewish territorial movement.
Early life and education Zangwill was born in Whitechapel, London on 21 January 1864, in a family of Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire. His father, Moses Zangwill, was from what is now Latvia, and his mother, Ellen Hannah Marks Zangwill, was from what is now Poland. He dedicated his life to championing the cause of people he considered oppressed, becoming involved with topics such as Jewish emancipation, Jewish assimilation, territorialism, Zionism, and women's suffrage. His brother was novelist Louis Zangwill.Louis Zangwill in Jewish Encyclopedia
Zangwill received his early schooling in Plymouth and Bristol. When he was eight years old, his parents moved to Spitalfields, East London and he was enrolled in the Jews' Free School there, a school for Jewish immigrant children. The school offered a strict course of both secular and religious studies while supplying clothing, food, and health care for the scholars; presently one of its four houses is named Zangwill in his honour. At this school he excelled and even taught part-time, eventually becoming a full-fledged teacher.
While teaching, he studied for his degree from the University of London, earning a BA with triple honours in 1884.
Writings Zangwill published some of his works under the pen-names J. Freeman Bell (for works written in collaboration), and Countess von S. and Marshallik.
He had already written a tale entitled The Premier and the Painter in collaboration with Louis Cowen, when he resigned his position as a teacher at the Jews' Free School owing to differences with the school managers and ventured into journalism. He initiated and edited Ariel, The London Puck, and did miscellaneous work for the London press.
Zangwill's work earned him the nickname "the Dickens of the Ghetto".Israel Zangwill – A Sketch, by Emanuel Elzas; in the San Francisco Call; published 25 August 1895; retrieved 14 May 2013; archived at the Library of Congress He wrote a very influential novel Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People (1892), which the late 19th-century English novelist George Gissing called "a powerful book".Coustillas, Pierre ed. London and the Life of Literature in Late Victorian England: the Diary of George Gissing, Novelist. Brighton: Harvester Press, 1978, p. 364.
The use of the metaphorical phrase "melting pot" to describe American absorption of immigrants was popularised by Zangwill's play The Melting Pot,Werner Sollers, Beyond Ethnicity: Consent and Descent in American Culture (1986), Chapter 3 "Melting Pots" a success in the United States in 1909–10. The theatrical work explored the themes of ethnic tensions and the idea of cultural assimilation in early 20th-century America.
When The Melting Pot opened in Washington, D.C., on 5 October 1908, former President Theodore Roosevelt leaned over the edge of his box and shouted "That's a great play, Mr. Zangwill. That's a great play."Guy Szuberla, "Zangwill's The Melting Pot Plays Chicago," Melus, Vol. 20, No. 3, History and Memory. (Autumn, 1995), pp. 3–20. In 1912, Zangwill received a letter from Roosevelt in which Roosevelt wrote of The Melting Pot "That particular play I shall always count among the very strong and real influences upon my thought and my life."This passage is quoted on p.131 of "Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of Race" by Thomas G. Dyer 1980 Louisiana State University Press (Paperback edition 1992). A footnote shows the letter to have been written on 27 November 1912. This letter is held in the Roosevelt Collection, Library of Congress.
The protagonist of the play is David Quixano, a Russian Jewish immigrant who arrives in New York City after the Kishinev pogrom, in which his entire family is killed. He writes a great symphony named "The Crucible" expressing his hope for a world in which all ethnicity has melted away, and becomes enamored of a beautiful Russian Christian immigrant named Vera. The dramatic climax of the play is the moment when David meets Vera's father, who turns out to be the Russian officer responsible for the annihilation of David's family. Vera's father admits guilt, the symphony is performed to accolades, and David and Vera agree to wed and kiss as the curtain falls.
"Melting Pot celebrated America's capacity to absorb and grow from the contributions of its immigrants."Kraus, Joe, "How The Melting Pot Stirred America: The Reception of Zangwill's Play and Theater's Role in the American Assimilation Experience," Melus, Vol. 24, No. 3, Varieties of Ethnic Criticism. (Autumn, 1999), pp. 3–19. Zangwill was writing as "a Jew who no longer wanted to be a Jew. His real hope was for a world in which the entire lexicon of racial and religious difference is thrown away."Jonathan Sacks The Home We Build Together, Continium Books, 2007, p. 26
However, the play also addresses the challenges and conflicts that arise when different ethnic groups collide. It portrays the tensions between the Jewish and Christian communities, as well as the struggles of immigrants to find their place in a new society while preserving their cultural heritage.
"The Melting Pot" resonated with audiences during its time, as it captured the spirit of the American immigrant experience and explored issues of assimilation, identity, and the potential for a unified nation. The play contributed to the discourse on multiculturalism and the American identity, and it remains a significant work in the context of American theater and the portrayal of ethnic tensions on stage.
Zangwill wrote many other plays, including, on Broadway, Children of the Ghetto (1899), a dramatization of his own novel, directed by James A. Herne and starring Blanche Bates, Ada Dwyer, and Wilton Lackaye; Merely Mary Ann (1903) and Nurse Marjorie (1906), both of which were directed by Charles Cartwright and starred Eleanor Robson. Liebler & Co. produced all three plays as well as The Melting Pot. Daniel Frohman produced Zangwill's 1904 play The Serio-Comic Governess, featuring Cecilia Loftus, Kate Pattison-Selten, and Julia Dean.Burns Mantle and Garrison P. Sherwood, eds., The Best Plays of 1899–1909, pp. 351, 449, 465–466, 521–522. In 1931, Jules Furthman adapted Merely Mary Ann for a movie with Janet Gaynor.
Zangwill's simulation of Yiddish sentence structure in English aroused great interest. He also wrote mystery works, such as The Big Bow Mystery (1892), and social satire, such as The King of Schnorrers (1894), a picaresque novel (which became a short-lived musical comedy in 1979). His Dreamers of the Ghetto (1898) includes essays on famous Jews such as Baruch Spinoza, Heinrich Heine and Ferdinand Lassalle.
The Big Bow Mystery was one of the first locked room mystery novels. It has been almost continuously in print since 1891 and has been used as the basis for three movies.
Another much produced play was The Lens Grinder, based on the life of Spinoza.
Zionism and territorialism Zangwill was also involved with specifically Jewish issues as an assimilationist, an early Zionist, and a territorialist. Jewish territorialism was a political movement that emerged as a response to the rise of virulent antisemitism in Europe during the early years of the 20th century. It proposed the establishment of a Jewish homeland outside of Palestine, offering alternative solutions to the ongoing debate about Jewish self-determination and Zionism.
Zangwill for a time endorsed the efforts of Theodor Herzl, including presiding over a meeting at the Maccabean Club in London that was addressed by Herzl in November 1895, and endorsing the main Palestine-oriented Zionist movement. But in 1905, Zangwill changed his mind and founded his own organization, called the Jewish Territorialist Organization, advocating a Jewish homeland in whatever land might be availableIsrael Zangwill, Joseph Leftwich, Yoseloff, 1957, p. 219 in the world which could be found for them, with speculations including Canada, Australia, Mesopotamia, Uganda and Cyrenaica."At the centennial of his birth, even some of those who recognized the continuing relevance of his efforts to define the Jew in the modern world separated the compelling nature of his struggle from the Victorianness of his writing and the insufficiency of his solutions: territorialism, universal religion, assimilation into an American 'melting pot.' As John Gross wrote in Commentary, 'one honors the writer, and puts aside his books'." Rochelson, Meri-Jane, Review of Dreamer of the Ghetto: The Life and Works of Israel Zangwill, by Joseph H. Udelson. AJS Review, vol. 17, no. 1 (Spring 1992), pp. 120–123
Zangwill is inaccurately known for creating the slogan "A land without a people for a people without a land" describing Zionist aspirations in the Biblical land of Israel. He did not invent the phrase; he acknowledged borrowing it from Lord Shaftesbury.Garfinkle, Adam M., "On the Origin, Meaning, Use and Abuse of a Phrase." Middle Eastern Studies, London, October 1991, vol. 27 In 1853, during the preparation for the Crimean War, Shaftesbury wrote to Foreign Secretary Aberdeen that Greater Syria was "a country without a nation" in need of "a nation without a country.... Is there such a thing? To be sure there is, the ancient and rightful lords of the soil, the Jews!" In his diary that year he wrote "these vast and fertile regions will soon be without a ruler, without a known and acknowledged power to claim dominion. The territory must be assigned to some one or other.... There is a country without a nation; and God now in his wisdom and mercy, directs us to a nation without a country."Shaftsbury as cited in Hyamson, Albert, "British Projects for the Restoration of Jews to Palestine," American Jewish Historical Society, Publications 26, 1918 p. 140; and in Garfinkle, Adam M., "On the Origin, Meaning, Use and Abuse of a Phrase." Middle Eastern Studies, London, October 1991, vol. 27. See also Mideast Web: British Support for Jewish Restoration Shaftesbury himself was echoing the sentiments of Alexander Keith, D.D.A Land without a People for a People without a Land;" An oft-cited Zionist slogan was neither Zionist nor popular,"Diana Muir, Middle Eastern Quarterly, Spring 2008, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 55–62.
In 1901, in the New Liberal Review, Zangwill wrote that "Palestine is a country without a people; the Jews are a people without a country".Israel Zangwill, "The Return to Palestine", New Liberal Review, Dec. 1901, p. 615
Theodor Herzl got along well with Israel Zangwill and Max Nordau. They were both writers or 'men of letters'. In November 1901 Zangwill was still misreading the situation: "Palestine has but a small population of Arabs and fellahin and wandering, lawless, blackmailing Bedouin tribes."Israel Zangwill, The Commercial Future of Palestine, Debate at the Article Club, 20 November 1901. Published by Greenberg & Co. Also published in English Illustrated Magazine, Vol. 221 (Feb 1902) pp. 421–430. To conclude his opening address to the Article Club, Zangwill pretended to speak as the weary, Ashkenazic folktale character, the Wandering Jew, saying, "restore the country without a people to the people without a country... For we have something to give as well as to get. We can sweep away the blackmailerbe he Pasha or Bedouinwe can make the wilderness blossom as the rose, and build up in the heart of the world a civilization that may be a mediator and interpreter between the East and the West."