Israel Zangwill (21 Januar, 1864 – 1 August, 1926) was a British writer and humorist who dedicated his life to causes of the oppressed, from women’s suffrage to Jewish emancipation.
- Zangwill enrolled in the Jews’ Free School in Spitalfields, east London. The school was for Jewish immigrant children offering a strict studying course (both secular and religious) as well as clothing, food and health care. One of the four houses of the school these days is named for Zangwill.
- Zangwil earned his degree from the University of London in 1884 earning triple honors.
- His nickname was “Dickens of the Ghetto”
- Zangwill’s play The Melting Pot was a hit in the US during 1909-1910.
- When The Melting Pot opened in Washington DC, October 5, 1909 President Theodore Roosevelt shouted from his box “That’s a great play, Mr. Zangwill, that’s a great play”. In 1912 Roosevelt wrote a letter to Zangwill that he will always count The Melting Pot “among the very strong and real influences upon my thought and my life.”
- Zangwill married Edith Ayrton, a gentile feminist and author
- Zangwill also wrote Broadway plays.
- Zangwill wrote a novel of Jewish life, Children of the Ghetto (1892), which brought him an instant international fame on a commission by the Jewish Publication Society of America.
- After meeting Theodore Herzl, the founder of modern Zionist movement, Zangwill supported Zionism until 1905, when he created his own movement, the Jewish Territorial Organization (JTO).
- Zangwill was also a successful lecturer, traveling in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, Holland, and to Jerusalem.
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