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The Schnorrer in Israel Zangwill's Work
in European Judaism
Author:
Mélisande Labrande
Mélisande Labrande
Researcher, Aix-Marseille Université, France
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Abstract
This article charts the historical and literary origins of the schnorrer, a Yiddish term for ‘proud beggar’ and a character of Eastern European Jewish culture. It aims to shed light on the schnorrer's entrance as a protagonist in British popular literature in the work of Israel Zangwill, and to show its originality. To do so, it focuses mainly on the novella The King of Schnorrers (1894), in which the schnorrer holds the leading role, and on Children of the Ghetto (1892), in which the schnorrer is a secondary and yet essential character. By locating the schnorrer outside of the Ashkenazi ethno-social context, Zangwill carries out a refashioning of this figure and grounds him in a wider social and literary lineage. He turns him into a literary character who challenges Western capitalist societies, thanks to a multi-layered identity, conflicting contexts and plural literary genres.
Contributor Notes
A PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at Aix-Marseille Université, Mélisande Labrande has been granted a doctoral fellowship to conduct her PhD thesis on the representations of marginality in the works of Israel Zangwill, Albert Cohen and Albert Cossery. She is currently an assistant teacher and researcher at the University of Paris Nanterre.