Comments on: Israel Zangwill’s Spitalfields

By: Anna

Anna — Fri, 22 Jul 2016 05:19:12 +0000

Thank you, Nadia. What a great piece. Will download the app.

By: P

Thu, 30 Jun 2016 20:01:16 +0000

Thank you so much for this post. My great-grandfather entered the school in 1877 so this is wonderful to see.

By: Susan

Susan — Thu, 30 Jun 2016 09:58:53 +0000

There is a blue plaque for Israel Zangwill at 288 Old Ford Road near Victoria Park. I lived in that area as a child and passed it hundreds of times and always wondered who Israel Zangwill was. Now I know. Thank you gentle author for educating me and for publishing this interesting story.

By: Nadia Valman

Nadia Valman — Wed, 29 Jun 2016 11:40:27 +0000

Thank you all for your comments: I hope you will use and enjoy the app. If you are outside the UK, you might like to look at the website version of the app, zangwillsspitalfields.org.uk.

The Jewish Free Sschool archives are at the London Metropolitan Archives. A history of the school was published in 1998 by Gerry Black and it appears fairly briefly in various histories of British Jewry including Eugene Black’s excellent one. So I am sure there is much more still unresearched. The Maccabeans still exist too…

By: Vicky

Vicky — Wed, 29 Jun 2016 09:02:15 +0000

Israel Zangwill was a strong supporter of Sylvia Pankhurst and the Suffragette movement. At that time he lived on the south side of Victoria Park where so many rallies and marches took place.

By: Daphne Sherman

Daphne Sherman — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 19:10:17 +0000

Pleased to see my ancestor is still making news – Israel Zangwill’s parents were my great great grandparents.

By: Paul Shaviv / NY, USA

Paul Shaviv / NY, USA — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 17:33:35 +0000

Congratulations on a GREAT post! Way back in the early 1960’s (it may have been 1963/4 – the Zangwill Centenary), age 14, I won what was then the huge sum of 25 pounds in an essay competition sponsored by the Maccabeans (do they still exist?) on the subject of ‘The East End of London as portrayed in Zangwill’s Children of the Ghetto’. That was in the days before copiers etc, and I wrote it in pen and ink. I had no copy. I would LOVE to retrieve a copy – a few years ago I asked at the University of Southampton, which holds the Maccabeans archives, but they couldn’t help. It really started me on my serious interest in the East End. Thanks again for a fascinating post. Do archives of the JFS exist? Has anyone really researched the school?

By: maeri

maeri — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 13:42:16 +0000

I look forward to reading Zangwill and learning about this vanished life. Too bad the school building no longer exists. To their credit, it looks like the Rothchilds spared no expense to build a grand, spacious building. As in all photos of poor children taken at that time, they appear to be malnourished. Spitalfields had its counterpart in the Lower East Side of Manhattan; a place of terrible poverty for Jewish immigrants, but one that also had the promise of eventual assimilation and upward mobility, unlike Russia and Europe. Thanks for this interesting and informative blog, the photos you post make it especially interesting.

By: Shawdian

Shawdian — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 11:33:48 +0000

HOW VERY STRANGE! Just yesterday I ordered this book “Children of the Gheto A Study of a Peculiar People” by Isreal Zangwills which will be arriving tomorrow. Now I cannot wait to read it. You can also down load the book for free on Amazon. As an historian, I am always looking into our past and last week Isreal was popping up all over and grabbed my attention so much I needed to know more about this fascinating character. He seems like the kind of person I would like to speak with, a true soul compassionate about life and other peoples
worth and who liked to get inside the minds of the people and see them for who they really were not just ‘the poor’ under privileged. The photographs accompanying this article are a treasure, an open window into a past world where now, we walk in their ghostly footsteps. Once more The Gentle Author has fed me my daily bread. Thank you. You never know, we may have met some of those children all grown up and aged standing at the local bustop or living next door !

By: Shawdian

Shawdian — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 07:14:46 +0000

Just popped into my e box and after breakfast, so looking forward to reading this and exploring the photos. Thank you Gentle Author dearest of all servers, you have done it again!