Zangwill, Israel (1864-1926)

English Author and Jewish Leader

The son of poor Russian immigrants, Israel Zangwill was born in Bristol and educated in London. He attended the Jewish Free School of London's East End and later taught there. His career as an author began with humorous short stories and, estimating that he would one day write about East End Jewry, he recorded anecdotes and experiences from the community in notebooks, which later became the basis of his novels.

In 1889, Zangwill published an essay in the Jewish Quarterly Review expressing his ambivalence about the role of Judaism in the modern world. Although nostalgic about Jewish tradition and community life in the ghetto, Zangwill essentially felt that traditional Judaism was an anachronism in the enlightened, emancipated world. This tension between his Jewish roots and modernity recurs in Zangwill's "ghetto novels," which began with Children of the Ghetto (1892). This and the novels that followed portray characters who are torn between the familiarity of the ghetto and the allure of the outside world; their conflict embodies Zangwill's basic dilemma about Judaism and modernity.

Zangwill met Herzl in 1895, became a supporter of the Zionist cause, and one year later attended the rally of the Maccabeans with Herzl, which was in essence the beginning of the British Zionist movement. Zangwill visited Eretz Yisrael in 1897, and became a vocal advocate of Jewish nationalism which, he argued, could be realized in any area, and not exclusively in Eretz Yisrael. Indeed, following the Zionist Congress's rejection of the Uganda proposal in 1905, Zangwill became disaffected with the mainstream Zionist movement and founded the Jewish Territorial Organization, whose goal was to obtain territory--anywhere--for Jewish settlement. Other than settling several thousand Jews in Galveston, Texas, however, the group was largely ineffectual. Following the Balfour Declaration, Zangwill rejoined the official Zionist movement, but the pioneers' difficulties in settling the land and in dealing with the Arabs, caused him to revert to his belief that a different territory would present a more viable option.

Zangwill's support for territorialism, rather than the classic form of Zionism, is related to the leitmotif of his writings, namely that Judaism and Jewish traditions are no longer compatible with the modern age. Hence, his belief in pragmatism rather than a spiritual or religious association with land. At times, his is also a philosophy of inclusiveness, whereby people come together, even at the expense of losing their ethnic roots.

Zangwill wrote several plays, only one of which, The Melting Pot, achieved any success on the stage. Ironically, perhaps, given his beliefs, his literature on issues other than Jewish subjects is considered of decidedly lesser value. In addition to Jewish territorialism, Zangwill supported major social causes, including women's suffrage. During World War I he urged pacifism, and following the war, advocated the establishment of the League of Nations.