← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Brooke
Thread ID: 17109 | Posts: 3 | Started: 2005-03-04
2005-03-04 15:27 | User Profile
[url=http://www.word-detective.com/back-k2.html#meltingpot ][B]Melting Pot[/B][/url]
Q. Dear Evan: I hope you can help me out with this one. I remember quite clearly from middle school back in the 1970s that in my History class we watched a film about the origins of the United States and the fact that people came from all over the world to live here. They referred to this country as the "Great Melding Pot." I asked the teacher after the film why they referred to it as the "Great Melting Pot" and was severely reprimanded for using the wrong term (and they wonder why to this day I dislike History). It was made clear to me that the proper word was "melding," not "melting." Now, though, I see the term in newspapers and magazines all the time and they call this country the "melting" pot. Which term is correct and what is the origin of the correct term? -- David Bradley, via the Internet.
A. Oh boy. While I know for a fact that most teachers are dedicated professionals, underpaid and under-appreciated, doing a great job under often dreadful conditions, there are exceptions, and you ran afoul of one such case. Your teacher was wrong, which is not a crime, and also arrogant and vindictive, which ought to be.
The phrase, as you thought so many years ago, is indeed "melting pot." Although "meld," meaning to merge or combine, would be a plausible word to substitute, there is no doubt about the original form of the phrase. That's because it comes from the title of a popular play -- "The Melting Pot" -- [u]written by Israel Zangwill in 1908[/u]. Literally speaking, a melting pot is a vessel in which metals or other substances are melted. While "melting pot" as a metaphor for the process of immigrants being assimilated into American life was probably not invented by Zangwill, his play popularized the term and made it a permanent part of the American popular idiom.
[url=http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/zangwill.html ]Israel Zangwill[/url] :dung:
[img]http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/images/zangwill.jpg[/img]
(1864 * 1926)
Israel Zangwill was born in London in 1864 and achieved fame by his writing a number of novels on Jewish themes. In successive years he published Children of the Ghetto (1892), Ghetto Tragedies and The King of Schnorrers. Zangwill had been a leading member of the Order of Ancient Maccabeans, [u]a Zionist society established in 1891[/u]. [u]When Herzl visited London in 1896 he met with Zangwill to discuss Zionist plans[/u]. Zangwill attended the First Zionist Congress and additional congresses thereafter. He supported Herzl's Uganda plan and following its rejection, led the Territorialists out of the Zionist organization in 1905. He established the Jewish Territorialists Organization (ITO) whose object was to acquire a Jewish homeland where possible. Following the securing of the Balfour declaration, the ITO fell into decline and by 1925 it was officially dissolved. Zangwill supported Zionist efforts in EretzIsrael calling for a radical approach both as regards the demand for the early establishment of a Jewish State and the solution of the Arab question. As regards the latter he called for the transfer of Arabs from EretzIsrael to neighboring Arab states.
Zangwill died in 1926 in Preston, North England.
2005-03-04 17:49 | User Profile
Yes, Israel Zangwill is one of the most prominent names in among jewish immigrationists. Kevin McDonald referes to him 19 times in [I]Culture of Critique[/I]. His most notable quote perhaps was
[QUOTE]As Israel Zangwill said in advocating a policy a Jewish strategy for unrestricted immigration "Tell them they are destroying American ideals."
(Chapter 8 - Whither Judaism and the West?) [/QUOTE]
2005-03-04 20:04 | User Profile
Check out that slimy gloved hand on Izzy. An antropologist would have a picnic figuring out what creature he popped out of. :eek:
'Wer kennt den Jude kennt den Teufel' ('Whoever knows the Jew knows the Devil')