Chosen Peoples

J. A. Hammerton, Israel Zangwill

Description

First published in 1910, “Chosen Peoples” is a treatise by British author Israel Zangwill that explores the idea of the Jews as “chosen people”, exploring its origins, meaning, problems, criticisms, historical importance, and much more in a fascinating and in-depth study of the subject. Israel Zangwill (1864–1926) was a leading figure in cultural Zionism during the 19th century, as well as close friend of father of modern political Zionism, Theodor Herzl. In later life, he renounced the seeking of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. A notable portion of Zangwill's work concentrated on ghetto life and earned him the nickname "the Dickens of the Ghetto". This vintage book will appeal to those with an interest in Judaism and Zionism, and it would make for a worthy addition to collections of allied literature. This classic work is being republished now in a new edition complete with an introductory chapter from “English Humourists of To-Day” by J. A. Hammerton.

Sujets

• Tanaj
• Arthur Davis
• Tanakh

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 26 mai 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781528789936
• Langue: English

Extrait

CHOSEN PEOPLES
THE HEBRAIC IDEAL VERSUS THE TEUTONIC
WITH A CHAPTER FROM English Humorists of To-day BY J. A. Hammerton
By
ISRAEL ZANGWILL

First published in 1918


This edition published by Read Books Ltd. Copyright © 2019 Read Books Ltd. This book is copyright and may not be
reproduced or copied in any way without
the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library


To Mrs. Redcliffe N. Salaman This little book in her Father's memory



Contents
Israel Zangwill
NOTE
FOREWORD
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
AFTERWORD



Isr ael Zangwill



Israel Zangwill
This picture though it is not much Like Zangwill, is not void of worth It has one true Zangwillian touch It looks like nothing else on earth.
Oliver Herford Confessions of a Caricaturist,
Perhaps some one will suggest that Mr. Israel Zangwill is a humorist only as one whom "we loved long since and lost awhile," because of late years — indeed, for more than a decade — little that is entirely humorous has come from his pen. On the other hand, he has never been a humorist who inspires affection: he is somewhat too intellectual for that. There is no novelist who, with greater justice, takes himself and his art more seriously than Mr. Zangwill has done since, in 1892, he wrote that masterpiece of modern fiction, Children of the Ghetto ; yet, as he began his literary career as a humorous writer and is beyond question one of our masters of epigrammatic wit and intellectual point—de—vice, he may with sufficient reason be included in any survey of modern humour. Moreover, despite the high and serious purpose of all his later work, his attendant imps of mirth are ever at his elbow, and we find him with welcome frequency acknowledging their presence in the writing of even his soberest stories.
Born to Jewish parents in London forty—three years ago, Mr Zangwill shares the distonction of such celebrities as Napoleon and Wellington in not knowing his birthday. He is aware that the year was 1864, but the day would seem to have been "wropt in mystery." He has, however, got over the difficulty by choosing his own birthday, and for this purpose he selected February 14. "It is not merely." he says, "that St. Valentine's Day is the very day for a novelist," but he has a dog "whose pedigree has been more carefully kept" than his own, and it bears the name Valentine from having been born on the saint's day, master and dog can celebrate their birthday together. This canine favourite he has thus addressed in verse:
Accept from me these birthday lines— If every dog must have his dog, How bless'd to have St.Valentine's!
But, asked on one occasion to give the date of his birthday, Mr.Zangwill replied, expressing his inability to do so, and suggested that the inquirer might "select some nice convenient day, a roomy one, on which he would not be jostled by bigger men."
As he is eminently original in his personality as well as in his work, it is not surprising to know that during his boyhood his favourite reading was not found among the conventional classics, but that he loved to rove in the strange realms of fiction created by writers whose names will be found nowhere in the annals of bookland; the fabricators of cheap boy's stories to wit. Yet his scholastic training was eminently respectable, as he was the most successful scholar of his time at the Jews' Free School in Spitalfields, and before he was twenty—one he had graduated B.A. at the London University with triple honours.
J. A. Hammerton English Humorists of To-day, 1907



NOTE
The Arthur Davis Memorial Lecture was founded in 1917, under the auspices of the Jewish Historical Society of England, by his collaborators in the translation of "The Service of the Synagogue," with the object of fostering Hebraic thought and learning in honour of an unworldly scholar. The Lecture is to be given annually in the anniversary week of his death, and the lectureship is to be open to men or women of any race or creed, who are to have absolute liberty in the treatment of their subject.


FOREWORD
Mr. Arthur Davis, in whose memory has been founded the series of Lectures devoted to the fostering of Hebraic thought and learning, of which this is the first, was born in 1846 and died on the first day of Passover, 1906. His childhood was spent in the town of Derby, where there was then no Synagogue or Jewish minister or teacher of Hebrew. Spontaneously he developed a strong Jewish consciousness, and an enthusiasm for the Hebrew language, which led him to become one of its greatest scholars in this, or any other, country.
He was able to put his learning to good use. He observed the wise maxim of Leonardo da Vinci, "Avoid studies of which the result dies with the worker." He was not one of those learned men, of whom there are many examples—a recent and conspicuous instance was the late Lord Acton—whose minds are so choked with the accumulations of the knowledge they have absorbed that they can produce little or nothing. His output, though not prolific, was substantial. In middle life he wrote a volume on "The Hebrew Accents of the Twenty-one Books of the Bible," which has become a classical authority on that somewhat recondite subject. It was he who originated and planned the new edition of the Festival Prayer Book in six volumes, and he wrote most of the prose translations. When he died, though only two volumes out of the six had been published, he left the whole of the text complete. To Mr. Herbert M. Adler, who had been his collaborator from the beginning, fell the finishing of the great editorial task.
Not least of his services lay in the fact that he had transmitted much of his knowledge to his two daughters, who have worthily continued his tradition of Hebrew scholarship and culture.
Arthur Davis's life work, then, was that of a student and interpreter of Hebrew. It is a profoundly interesting fact that, in our age, movements have been set on foot in more than one direction for the revival of languages which were dead or dying. We see before our eyes Welsh and Irish in process of being saved from extinction,