born Feb. 14, 1864, London, Eng.
died Aug. 1, 1926, Midhurst, West Sussex
English novelist, playwright, and Zionist leader.
The son of eastern European immigrants, Zangwill drew on his own experience in Children of the Ghetto (1892), which aroused great interest. His The King of Schnorrers (1894) is a picaresque novel about an 18th-century rogue, and Dreamers of the Ghetto (1898) contains essays on famous Jews. The metaphor of America as a crucible wherein various nationalities are transformed into a new race comes from his play The Melting Pot (1908). He is remembered as one of the earliest English interpreters of Jewish immigrant life.