Zangwill, Israel

(1864-1926)

   He was born in London's East End of refugee parents who escaped the severe decree of Jewish childconscription instituted by Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. He was educated at the Jews' Free School at Spitalfields, London, and London University, after which he became a journalist. He accepted an invitation to write a Jewish novel for the newly founded Jewish Publication Society of America. The Children of the Ghetto (1892) was a work that established his reputation as a writer. In 1905-a time of great persecution in Russia and elsewhere-he broke away from the Zionist movement and founded the Jewish Territorial Organization, which unsuccessfully sought land within the British Empire where Jews might settle. He rejoined the Zionists in 1917. He died of pneumonia at Midhurst, Sussex. He wrote several other novels about Jewish life, as well as stories, plays, essays, and poems. His best-known play is The Melting Pot (1908). A small volume of poems, Blind Children, appeared in 1903. Some of his poems: "At the Worst," "At the Zoo," "Despair and Hope," "In the City," "Israel," "Seder Night in London," "Yom Kippur."

   Sources: A Treasury of Jewish Poetry. Nathan Ausubel and Maryann Ausubel, eds. Crown, 1957. Antholog y of Modern Jewish Poetry. Philip M. Raskin, ed. Behrman's Jewish Book Shop, 1927. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. Microsoft Encarta 2006 (DVD). Microsoft Corporation, 2006. The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The World's Great Religious Poetry. Caroline Miles Hill, ed. Macmillan, 1954.