Zangwill, Israel (1864-1926), was an English novelist and dramatist known for his works on Jewish themes. He made his reputation with the novel The Children of the Ghetto (1892), a sympathetic story of immigrant Jews struggling to survive in the Whitechapel district of London. His other works on Jewish subjects included the novel Ghetto Tragedies (1893) and a collection of essays published as Dreamers of the Ghetto (1898). Zangwill won success with the dramatization of The Children of the Ghetto in 1899; with light comedies such as Merely Mary Ann (1904); and with social dramas, such as the melodrama The Melting Pot (1908) and the antiwar play The War God (1911).
Zangwill was born in January or February 1864, in London. His father was a Russian Jewish refugee. Zangwill was educated at the Jews’ Free School and the University of London. He became a member of the Zionist movement in 1896 and soon afterward served as its leader. Zionism’s aim was to set up a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Later, however, Zangwill sought another area besides Palestine for the settlement of the Jews. He founded the Jewish Territorial Organization, a group that investigated sites for the establishment of a Jewish nation in Africa, Argentina, Australia, and Canada. Zangwill died on Aug. 1, 1926.
