A long-overdue reissue restores to print an 1892 novel that is
generally acknowledged as one of the earliest and finest works of
Anglo-Jewish fiction. A scholarly and informative Introduction by
editor Rochelson capably summarizes the life and influence of its
once-famous author (1864 - 1926) as fiction writer, journalist,
playwright, and political activist. Published both in Zangwill's
native England (he was a second-generation Jew of Latvian and
Polish heritage) and in America as the initial offering of the
Jewish Publication Society, Children of the Ghetto - the author's
third book of fiction - was an instant critical and popular
success. Its exhaustively detailed portrayal of social, economic,
and marital strife in London's Whitechapel Ghetto (where Zangwill
was born) brings to vivid life an impressive gallery of believably
thoughtful characters - most notably those torn between the new
science and theology of the ending century and the tradition-bound
world of their fathers. Prominent among Zangwill's several
protagonists are Hannah Jacobs, who sacrifices her own happiness to
obey her parents' beliefs; Esther Ansell, a troubled freethinker
who will fulfill her intellectual ambitions only by writing in the
guise of a male author; and Raphael Leon and Joseph Strelitsky,
each of whom is both embittered and empowered by the tension
between his commitment to orthodoxy and his conviction that the
world is changing in ways his elders' wisdom can't comprehend. The
frequent objection to the comparatively undramatic "Book Two:
Grandchildren of the Ghetto" - that it amounts to little more than
Zionist propaganda - has merit; yet even in its flatly
argumentative pages, the resolutions of its characters' moral
dilemmas are presented with passionate force. And few have ever
denied that the racy color and vitality of its first half ("Book
One: Children of the Ghetto") make this one of the liveliest novels
of its period. An incomparable portrait of a culture in transition
- and a classic that truly deserves to be rediscovered and
remembered. (Kirkus Reviews)
In its first appearance in 1892, Israel Zangwill's ""Children of
the Ghetto"" created a sensation in both England and America,
becoming the first Anglo-Jewish bestseller and establishing
Zangwill as the literary voice of Anglo-Jewry. A novel set in
late-19th-century London, ""Children of the Ghetto"" gave an inside
look into an immigrant community that was almost as mysterious to
the more established middle-class Jews of Britain as to the
non-Jewish population, providing an analysis of a generation caught
between the ghetto and modern British life. ""Children of the
Ghetto"" remains a landmark work of modern Jewish fiction as well
as an essential late Victorian text. As the first Jewish East End
novel, the book ignited an important 20th-century genre. In a
period that saw the development of the working-class novel and the
novel of spiritual malaise, ""Children of the Ghetto"" encompassed
both. The novel conveys details of life in the ghetto and explores
a spiritual crisis among young Jews at a time when a questioning of
beliefs appeared in Christian novels as well. Zangwill's realistic
portrayal intrigued middle-class Jews and elicited nostalgia in
those who started out in the East End. Although a novel about
British Jews, ""Children of the Ghetto"" also found success in the
US as the first work of fiction published by the Jewish Publication
Society of America. This volume brings back to print the 1895
edition of ""Children of the Ghetto"", the latest American version
known to have been corrected by the author. Meri-Jane Rochelson
places the novel in proper context by providing a biographical,
historical and critical introduction; a bibliography of primary and
secondary sources, and notes on the text, making this accessible to
both Jewish and non-Jewish readers.
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