Israel Zangwill (14 February 1864 – 1 August 1926; birth date sometimes given as 21 January 1864) was a British author at the forefront of cultural Zionism during the 19th century, and was a close associate of Theodor Herzl. He later rejected the search for a Jewish homeland in Palestine and becamethe prime thinker behind the territorial movement.

Early life and education Zangwill was born in Whitechapel,London on 21 January 1864, in a family of Jewish immigrants from Lithuania, then part of 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.

Zangwill received his early schoolingin Plymouth and Bristol. When he was eight years old, his parents moved toSpitalfields, 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 secularand 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 afull-fledged teacher. While teaching, he studied for his degree from the University of London, earning a BA with triple honours in 1884.

Career Time cover, 17 September 1923 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 taleentitled 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 initiatedand edited Ariel, The London Puck, and did miscellaneous work forthe London press.] Theatre Programme for the play The Melting Pot (1916). Zangwill's work earned him the nickname "the Dickens of the Ghetto". He wrote a very influential novel Childrenof the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People (1892), which the late19th-century English novelist George Gissing called "a powerful book".

The use of the metaphorical phrase"melting pot" to describe American absorption ofimmigrants was popularised by Zangwill's play The Melting Pot,

a success in the United States in 1909–10. Thetheatrical work explored the themes of ethnic tensions and the idea of cultural assimilation in early 20th-century America. When The Melting Pot openedin Washington, D.C., on 5 October 1908, former President Theodore Roosevelt leanedover the edge of his box and shouted "That's a great play, Mr. Zangwill.That's a great play."

In 1912, Zangwill received a letter from Rooseveltin which Roosevelt wrote of The Melting Pot "Thatparticular play I shall always count among the very strong and real influencesupon my thought and my life."

The protagonist of the play is DavidQuixano, a Russian Jewish immigrant who arrives in New York City afterthe Kishinev pogrom, in whichhis entire family is killed. He writes a great symphony named "TheCrucible" expressing his hope for a world in which all ethnicity hasmelted away, and becomes enamored of a beautiful Russian Christian immigrantnamed Vera. The dramatic climax of the play is the moment when David meetsVera's father, who turns out to be the Russian officer responsible for theannihilation of David's family. Vera's father admits guilt, the symphony isperformed to accolades, and David and Vera agree to wed and kiss as the curtainfalls. "Melting Pot celebratedAmerica's capacity to absorb and grow from the contributions of itsimmigrants."

Zangwill was writing as "a Jew who no longerwanted to be a Jew. His real hope was for a world in which the entire lexiconof racial and religious difference is thrown away."

However, the play also addresses thechallenges and conflicts that arise when different ethnic groups collide. Itportrays the tensions between the Jewish and Christian communities, as well asthe struggles of immigrants to find their place in a new society whilepreserving their cultural heritage. "The Melting Pot" resonatedwith audiences during its time, as it captured the spirit of the Americanimmigrant experience and explored issues of assimilation, identity, and thepotential for a unified nation. The play contributed to the discourse onmulticulturalism and the American identity, and it remains a significant workin the context of American theater and the portrayal of ethnic tensions onstage.[16] Zangwill wrote many other plays,including, on Broadway, Children of the Ghetto (1899), adramatization 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 byCharles Cartwright and starred Eleanor Robson. Liebler& Co. produced all three plays as well as The Melting Pot. Daniel Frohman produced Zangwill's 1904 play TheSerio-Comic Governess, featuring Cecilia Loftus, Kate Pattison-Selten, and Julia Dean.[17] In 1931, Jules Furthman adapted Merely Mary Ann for a movie with Janet Gaynor. Zangwill's simulation of Yiddishsentence structure in English aroused great interest. He also wrote mysteryworks, such as The Big Bow Mystery (1892),and social satire, such as The King ofSchnorrers (1894), a picaresque novel (which became a short-lived musicalcomedy in 1979). His Dreamers of the Ghetto (1898) includesessays 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 thebasis for three movies.[18] Signed drawing by Manuel Rosenberg 1924 Another much produced play was TheLens Grinder, based on the life of Spinoza. "A Child of the Ghetto" Zangwill as caricatured by Walter Sickert in Vanity Fair,February 1897. Members of the Jewish TerritorialistOrganization with Zangwill sitting in the front row center; the photograph inthe center background is of Theodor Herzl. June 1905 Zangwill endorsed feminism andpacifism,[18] but his greatest effect may have been as a writerwho popularised the idea of the combination of ethnicities into a single,American nation. The hero of his widely produced play The Melting Pot proclaims:"America is God's Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races ofEurope are melting and reforming...Germans and Frenchmen, Irishmen andEnglishmen, Jews and Russians – into the Crucible with you all! God is makingthe American."[20] Jewish politics[edit] Zangwill was also involved withspecifically Jewish issues as an assimilationist, an early Zionist, and a territorialist.[18] Jewish territorialism was a political movement thatemerged as a response to the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe during the early20th century. It proposed the establishment of a Jewish homeland outside ofPalestine, offering alternative solutions to the ongoing debate about Jewishself-determination and Zionism.[21] After having for a time endorsed Theodor Herzl, including presiding over a meeting at theMaccabean Club, London, addressed by Herzl on 24 November 1895, and endorsingthe main Palestine-oriented Zionist movement. Zangwill changed his mind andfounded his own organization, named the Jewish TerritorialistOrganization in 1905, advocating a Jewish homeland in whateverland might be available[22] in the world which could be found for them, withspeculations including Canada, Australia, Mesopotamia, Uganda and Cyrenaica.[23] Zangwill is inaccurately known forcreating the slogan "A land without a people for a people without a land"describing Zionist aspirations in the Biblical land of Israel. He did notinvent the phrase; he acknowledged borrowing it from LordShaftesbury.[24] In 1853, during the preparation for the Crimean War, Shaftesbury wrote to Foreign Secretary Aberdeenthat Greater Syria was "a country without a nation" in need of"a nation without a country.... Is there such a thing? To be sure thereis, the ancient and rightful lords of the soil, the Jews!" In his diarythat year he wrote "these vast and fertile regions will soon be without aruler, without a known and acknowledged power to claim dominion. The territorymust 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 acountry."[25] Shaftesbury himself was echoing the sentimentsof Alexander Keith, D.D.[26] In 1901, in the New Liberal Review,Zangwill wrote that "Palestine is a country without a people; the Jews area people without a country".[24][27] Theodor Herzl fared best with IsraelZangwill, and Max Nordau. They were both writers or 'men of letters' -imagination that engendered understanding. Baron Albert Rothschild had little to do with the Jews.On Herzl's visits to London, they co-operated closely.[28] In a debate at the Article Club inNovember 1901 Zangwill was still misreading the situation: "Palestine hasbut a small population of Arabs and fellahin and wandering, lawless, blackmailing Bedouin tribes."[29] Then, in the dramatic voice of the Wandering Jew, "restore the country without a people tothe people without a country. (Hear, hear.) For we have something to give aswell as to get. We can sweep away the blackmailer—be he Pasha or Bedouin—we canmake the wilderness blossom as the rose, and build up in the heart of the worlda civilization that may be a mediator and interpreter between the East and theWest."[29] In 1902, Zangwill wrote that Palestine"remains at this moment an almost uninhabited, forsaken and ruined Turkishterritory".[30] However, within a few years, Zangwill had"become fully aware of the Arab peril", telling an audience in NewYork, "Palestine proper has already its inhabitants. The pashalik of Jerusalem isalready twice as thickly populated as the United States" leaving Zioniststhe choice of driving the Arabs out or dealing with a "large alienpopulation".[31] He moved his support to the Uganda scheme, leading toa break with the mainstream Zionist movement by 1905.[32] In 1908, Zangwill told a London court that he hadbeen naive when he made his 1901 speech and had since "realized what isthe density of the Arab population", namely twice that of the UnitedStates.[33] In 1913 he criticized those who insisted onrepeating that Palestine was "empty and derelict" and who called hima traitor for reporting otherwise.[34] According to Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Zangwill told him in 1916 that, "If youwish to give a country to a people without a country, it is utter foolishnessto allow it to be the country of two peoples. This can only cause trouble. TheJews will suffer and so will their neighbours. One of the two: a differentplace must be found either for the Jews or for their neighbours".[35] In 1917, he wrote "'Give thecountry without a people,' magnanimously pleaded Lord Shaftesbury, 'to thepeople without a country.' Alas, it was a misleading mistake. The country holds600,000 Arabs."[36] Far End, East Preston, West Sussex In 1921, Zangwill suggested LordShaftesbury "was literally inexact in describing Palestine as a countrywithout a people, he was essentially correct, for there is no Arab peopleliving in intimate fusion with the country, utilizing its resources andstamping it with a characteristic impress: there is at best an Arab encampment,the break-up of which would throw upon the Jews the actual manual labor ofregeneration and prevent them from exploiting the fellahin, whose numbers and lower wages are moreover aconsiderable obstacle to the proposed immigration from Poland and othersuffering centers".[37] Quotes[edit] Zangwill listed the following as hismore striking passages:[1] · What is, is right. If aught seem wrongbelow,/Then wrong it is – of thee to leave it so – Without Prejudice · Art is truth seen as beauty – TheMaster · Hunted from shore to shore through theages they had found the national aspiration – peace – in a country wherePassover came without menace of blood – Children of the Ghetto · The Jewish mission will never be overtill the Christians are converted to the religion of Christ – Dreamers of theGhetto · Each poor man is a rung in the Jacob'sladder by which the rich man may, if he is charitable, mount to heaven – TheKing of Schnorrers Views[edit] In his writings, Zangwill expressedmixed sentiments about the then-territory of Palestine, parts of which becamethe modern State of Israel in 1948, two decades after hisdeath. After the establishment of the state, Philip Rubin speculated that thenew state might have met his aspirations.[2] He was an early suffragist.[1] During World War I, he advocated the formation of a Jewish foreignlegion to the central powers. "The League of Damnations"is a term associated with Zangwill's critique of the anti-Semitic sentimentprevalent in Europe during his time. He used this phrase to describe thecollective hostility and discrimination faced by Jewish people in variouscountries. Zangwill was an ardent opponent of anti-Semitism and used hiswritings to expose and challenge the prejudices and injustices faced by Jews.[38] Personal life Zangwill married Edith Ayrton in 1903.[4] She was a feminist and author, and the daughter ofcousins William Edward Ayrton and Matilda Chaplin Ayrton.Ayrton's stepmother was Hertha Ayrton,[39] who, like Zangwill, was Jewish.[40] The Zangwill family lived for manyyears in East Preston, West Sussex in a house named Far End.[41] The couple had three children, two sons and adaughter.[4] The younger of their two sons was the Britishpsychologist Oliver Zangwill. Zangwill died of pneumonia on 1 August1926 at a nursing home in Midhurst, West Sussex. He had spent two months at thenursing home.[4] Other works · Chosen Peoples: Publication of a lecture by IsraelZangwill at the London Jewish Historical Society, 1918, in the collection ofthe Jewish Museum ofSwitzerland.Chosen Peoples, (1919) · The Big Bow Mystery (1892) · The King of Schnorrers (1894) · The Mantle of Elijah (London : Heinemann) · The Master (1895) (based on the life offriend and illustrator George Wylie Hutchinson)[42] · The Melting Pot (1909) · The Old Maid’s Club (1892) · The Bachelors' Club (London : Henry, 1891) · The Serio-Comic Governess (1904) · Without Prejudice (1896) · Merely Mary Ann (1904) · The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes (1903) which include The GreyWig; Chasse-Croise; The Woman Beater; The Eternal Feminine; The Silent Sisters · Italian Fantasies (1910) As translator: · Selected Religious Poems of Solomonibn Gabirol; pub. The JewishPublication Society of America (1923) The "of the Ghetto" books: · Children of the Ghetto: A Study of aPeculiar People (1892) · Grandchildren of the Ghetto (1892) · Dreamers of the Ghetto (1898) · Ghetto Tragedies, (1899) · Ghetto Comedies, (1907)