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Israel Zangwill, The Poetry Of (Audiobook)
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Read by Ghizela Rowe, Jake Urry & Gideon Wagner (Unabridged: 1hr 2mins)

Israel Zangwill was born in London on 21st January 1864, to a family of Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire.

Zangwill was initially educated in Plymouth and Bristol.  At age 9 he was enrolled in the Jews' Free School in Spitalfields in east London. Zangwill excelled here.  He began to teach part-time at the school and eventually full time.  Whilst teaching he also studied with the University of London and by 1884 had earned his BA with triple honours in philosophy, history, and the sciences.

His writing earned him the sobriquet ‘the Dickens of the Ghetto’ primarily based on his much-lauded novel ‘Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People’ in 1892 and its glimpse of the poverty-stricken life in London's Jewish quarter.

As a writer he was keen to reflect on his political and social outlooks.  His simulation of Yiddish sentence structure in English aroused great interest. His mystery work, ‘The Big Bow Mystery’ (1892) was the first locked room mystery novel.

Zangwill was also involved with narrowly focused Jewish issues as an assimilationist, an early Zionist, and later a territorialist. In the early 1890s he joined the Lovers of Zion movement in England. In 1897 he joined Theodor Herzl (considered the father of modern political Zionism) in founding the World Zionist Organization.

Zangwill quit the established philosophy of Zionism when his plan for a homeland in Uganda was rejected and founded his own organisation; the Jewish Territorialist Organization. Its stated goal was to create a Jewish homeland in whatever territory in the world could be found for them.

Amongst the challenges in his life he found time to write poetry.  He had translated a medieval Jewish poet in 1903 and his volume ‘Blind Children’ in 1908 was well received.

‘The Melting Pot’ in 1909 made Zangwill’s name as an admired playwright.  When the play opened in Washington D.C., former President Theodore Roosevelt leaned over the edge of his box and shouted, "That's a great play, Mr. Zangwill, that's a great play."

Israel Zangwill died on 1st August 1926 in Midhurst, West Sussex.

 

In this compilation -

01 - The Poetry of Israel Zangwill
02 - Our Own by Israel Zangwill
03 - The Jews of England by Israel Zangwill
04 - Israel by Israel Zangwill
05 - Adon Olam by Israel Zangwill
06 - The Prophet's Message by Israel Zangwill
07 - Yom Kippur by Israel Zangwill
08 - The Hebrew's Friday Night by Israel Zangwill
09 - Seder Night by Israel Zangwill
10 - Perspective by Israel Zangwill
11 - Feminine Theology by Israel Zangwill
12 - Love's Prayer by Israel Zangwill
13 - Expectation by Israel Zangwill
14 - Sunset by Israel Zangwill
15 - May by Israel Zangwill
16 - Wasted by Israel Zangwill
17 - Love's Bubble by Israel Zangwill
18 - Forever Young by Israel Zangwill
19 - Love and Death by Israel Zangwill
20 - Love and Letters by Israel Zangwill
21 - A Stage Illusion by Israel Zangwill
22 - Evolution by Israel Zangwill
23 - A Working Philosophy by Israel Zangwill
24 - Faith and Words by Israel Zangwill
25 - Inexhaustible by Israel Zangwill
26 - Asti Spumante by Israel Zangwill
27 - Ballade of a Curious Couple by Israel Zangwill
28 - Blind Children by Israel Zangwill
29 - In a London Hospital by Israel Zangwill
30 - At the Zoo by Israel Zangwill
31 - A Political Character by Israel Zangwill
32 - Pastoral by Israel Zangwill
33 - The Cynic by Israel Zangswill
34 - Summer Evening Rain in London by Israel Zangwill
35 - Despair and Hope by Israel Zangwill
36 - At the Worst by Israel Zangwill
37 - The Bridge by Israel Zangwill
38 - In the Morgue by Israel Zangwill
39 - With the Dead by Israel Zangwill
40 - Death's Transfiguration by Israel Zangwill