Israel Zangwill

Israel Zangwill

Israel Zangwill (b. 21 January 1864 in London, England; d. 1 August 1926 in Midhurst, England) was a Jewish 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 became the prime thinker behind the territorial movement.

Life

Zangwill was born in Whitechapel, London on 21 January 1864, in a family of Jewish immigrants from Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire.

After having for a time endorsed Theodor Herzl, including presiding over a meeting at the Maccabean Club, London, addressed by Herzl on 24 November 1895, and endorsing the main Palestine-oriented Zionist movement, Zangwill changed his mind and founded his own organization, named the Jewish Territorialist Organization in 1905, advocating a Jewish homeland in whatever land might be available in the world which could be found for them.

The Melting Pot

The use of the metaphorical phrase "melting pot" to describe American absorption of immigrants was popularised by Zangwill's play The Melting Pot, in the United States in 1909–10. Zangwill was writing as "a Jew who no longer wanted to be a Jew. His real hope was for a world in which the entire lexicon of racial and religious difference is thrown away." Zangwill wrote many other plays.