Israel Zangwill (21 January 1864[1] – 1 August 1926) was a British author at the forefront of Zionism during the 19th century, and was a close associate of Theodor Herzl.

[5] The school offered a strict course of both secular and religious studies while supplying clothing, food, and health care for the scholars; presently one of its four houses is named Zangwill in his honour.

[9] He wrote a very influential novel Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People (1892), which the late 19th-century English novelist George Gissing called "a powerful book".

When The Melting Pot opened in Washington, D.C., on 5 October 1908, former President Theodore Roosevelt leaned over the edge of his box and shouted "That's a great play, Mr. Zangwill.

"[13] The protagonist of the play is David Quixano, a Russian Jewish immigrant who arrives in New York City after the Kishinev pogrom, in which his entire family is killed.

It portrays the tensions between the Jewish and Christian communities, as well as the struggles of immigrants to find their place in a new society while preserving their cultural heritage.

"The Melting Pot" resonated with audiences during its time, as it captured the spirit of the American immigrant experience and explored issues of assimilation, identity, and the potential for a unified nation.

[16] Zangwill wrote many other plays, including, on Broadway, Children of the Ghetto (1899), a dramatization of his own novel, directed by James A. Herne and starring Blanche Bates, Ada Dwyer, and Wilton Lackaye; Merely Mary Ann (1903) and Nurse Marjorie (1906), both of which were directed by Charles Cartwright and starred Eleanor Robson.

Daniel Frohman produced Zangwill's 1904 play The Serio-Comic Governess, featuring Cecilia Loftus, Kate Pattison-Selten, and Julia Dean.

His Dreamers of the Ghetto (1898) includes essays on famous Jews such as Baruch Spinoza, Heinrich Heine and Ferdinand Lassalle.

[19] Zangwill endorsed feminism and pacifism,[18] but his greatest effect may have been as a writer who popularised the idea of the combination of ethnicities into a single, American nation.

In November 1901 Zangwill was still misreading the situation: "Palestine has but a small population of Arabs and fellahin and wandering, lawless, blackmailing Bedouin tribes.

We can sweep away the blackmailer – be he Pasha or Bedouin – we can make the wilderness blossom as the rose, and build up in the heart of the world a civilization that may be a mediator and interpreter between the East and the West.

[30] However, within a few years, Zangwill had "become fully aware of the Arab peril", telling an audience in New York, "Palestine proper has already its inhabitants.

[32] In 1908, Zangwill told a London court that he had been naive when he made his 1901 speech and had since "realized what is the density of the Arab population", namely twice that of the United States.

"[36]In 1921, Zangwill suggested Lord Shaftesbury "was literally inexact in describing Palestine as a country without a people, he was essentially correct, for there is no Arab people living in intimate fusion with the country, utilizing its resources and stamping it with a characteristic impress: there is at best an Arab encampment, the break-up of which would throw upon the Jews the actual manual labor of regeneration and prevent them from exploiting the fellahin, whose numbers and lower wages are moreover a considerable obstacle to the proposed immigration from Poland and other suffering centers".

"The League of Damnations" is a term associated with Zangwill's critique of the anti-Semitic sentiment prevalent in Europe during his time.

Zangwill was an ardent opponent of anti-Semitism and used his writings to expose and challenge the prejudices and injustices faced by Jews.

[40] The Zangwill family lived for many years in East Preston, West Sussex in a house named Far End.