SOURCE: “Israel Zangwill: Prophet of the Ghetto,” in Judaism, Vol. 13, 1964, pp. 407–421.

In the essay below, Fisch contests the notion that Zangwill was a realist; instead he maintains that Zangwill used realist techniques to teach lessons about the Jews' epic struggle for survival, demonstrating at the same time his ambivalence about the Ghetto.

A hundred years is long enough to make and break an author's reputation. There is nothing surprising in this when we consider what has happened to Meredith, Swinburne, and even Kipling, all of whom enjoyed in their time a standing somewhat more eminent than that of Zangwill among English men of letters. But Zangwill's descent from near-classical eminence for the Jewish public of 1920 to the stage of being almost forgotten by 1964—the centenary of his birth—requires a little explanation. English-speaking Jewry is after all not quite so fertile in literary genius as to enable it...