Joseph Leftwich

Joseph Leftwich was born in Holland to Polish parents, who settled in the East End of London in 1897. He left school at age fourteen and, after working in the baking, furniture, and fur trades, became a journalist. He wrote for Yiddish, Hebrew, and English newspapers, composed verse in Yiddish and English, and wrote a valuable memoir of Israel Zangwill, whom he knew well. Leftwich was one of the “Whitechapel Boys,” a group of aspiring writers and artists in the East End in the years just before World War I. The group included John Rodker, Isaac Rosenberg, Stephen Winsten, Mark Gertler, and David Bomberg. His most important contributions to Jewish culture were his anthologies of Yiddish literature, which introduced to English-speaking readers a body of literature that was otherwise inaccessible to them.