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ISRAEL ZANGWILL |
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Categories:
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 Born
in London in 1864, Israel Zangwill can certainly be said to have left his
mark in the world. Fiction writer, dramatist, essayist and political activist,
he went to school in London and had a degree in French, English as well
as in Mental and Moral Science. He was the father of modern British-Jewish
literature. From his first book, Motza Kleis (Matzoh Balls), written
together with a fellow student, he analyzed, even if humorously, life in
the poorest Jewish quarters of London and his heavy use of Yiddish created
controversy. As a young man he taught in his school, the Jew's Free school,
but left in 1888 due to opposition against corporal punishment. He then
worked as journalist for the Jewish Standard writing a humor column.
His first major novel, Children of the Ghetto, came in 1892, commissioned
by the Jewish Publication Society of America. Depicting an ironic look on
Jewish life, it had an overwhelmingly positive response even though criticized
for exposing his people to a non-Jewish audience. Prior to this he had written
two short fiction volumes on non-Jewish themes: The Bachelor's Club and
The Old Maids' Club, both very successful. Also from this period
came the contribution of mystery fiction with The Big
Bow Mystery, the first locked room murder novel. His next works,
the novella Merely Mary Ann (later adapted by Zangwill into a play),
Ghetto Tragedies, The King of Schnorres and Dreamers of
the Ghetto, were also extremely popular. At the turn of the century
he married Edith Ayrton (1903), with which he will have three children,
and became extremely involved in politics. He was a so-called spokesman
for Anglo Jewry and fought many battles for the creation of a Jewish state
as well as for women's suffrage and pacifism. He did not stop writing: plays,
a collection of poems and the novel Ghetto Tragedies. Following a
speech in 1923 were all his frustration at the slowness of the Zionist movement
made him declare the latter politically dead, his career started to fall
as well as his health and he died in 1926 following a nervous breakdown. |
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