Maurice Samuel (February 8, 1895 – May 4, 1972) was a

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

n-born British and American novelist, translator and lecturer of Jewish heritage.

Biography

Born in

Măcin Măcin () is a town in Tulcea County, in the Northern Dobruja region of Romania. Location Măcin is located in the north-western part of the Northern Dobruja region, in Tulcea County. The city is located at the intersection of the DN22 ( E87) ...

Tulcea County Tulcea County () is a county ( județ) of Romania, in the historical region Dobruja, with the capital city at Tulcea. It includes in its northeast corner the large and thinly-populated estuary of the Danube. Demographics In 2011, Tulcea Co ...

, to Isaac Samuel and Fanny Acker, Samuel moved to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

with his family at the age of five and about a year later to England, where he studied at the Victoria University. His parents spoke

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

at home and he developed strong attachments to the Jewish people and the Yiddish language at early age. This later became the motivation for many of the books he wrote as an adult. Eventually, Samuel left England and emigrated to the United States, settling in New York City's Lower East Side. He served in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. A

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

intellectual and writer, Samuel is best known for his book '' You Gentiles'', published in 1924. Most of his work concerns itself with

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in t ...

or the Jew's role in history and modern society, but he also wrote more conventional fiction, such as ''The Web of Lucifer'', which takes place during the

Borgias The House of Borgia ( , ; Spanish and an, Borja ; ca-valencia, Borja ) was an Italian-Aragonese Spanish noble family, which rose to prominence during the Italian Renaissance. They were from Valencia, the surname being a toponymic from the town ...

' rule of

Renaissance Italy The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...

, and the

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and d ...

science-fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

novel '' The Devil that Failed''. Samuel also wrote the nonfiction ''King Mob'' under the pseudonym "Frank K. Notch". He and his work received acclaim within the Jewish community during his lifetime, including the 1944

Anisfield-Wolf Book Award The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award is an American literary award dedicated to honoring written works that make important contributions to the understanding of racism and the appreciation of the rich diversity of human culture. Established in 1935 by Clev ...

for his non-fiction work, ''

The World of Sholom Aleichem ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

''. He received the Itzik Manger Prize for Yiddish literature posthumously in 1972. Samuel died in New York City in 1972 at the age of 77.

Published works

Fiction

* ''The Outsider'' (1921) * ''Whatever Gods'' (1923) * ''Beyond Woman'' (1934) * ''Web of Lucifer'' (1947) * ''The Devil that Failed'' (1952) * ''The Second Crucifixion'' (1960)

Non-fiction

*
You Gentiles
' (1924) *
I, the Jew
' (1927) *
What Happened in Palestine: The Events of August, 1929: Their Background and Significance
' * ''King Mob: A Study of the Present-Day Mind'' (1931) * ''On the Rim of the Wilderness: The Conflict in Palestine'' (1931) *
Jews on Approval
' (1932) * ''The Great Hatred'' (1940) * ''The World of Sholom Aleichem'' (1943) *
Harvest in the Desert
' (1944) * ''Haggadah of Passover'' (1947) (translation) * ''Prince of the Ghetto'' (1948) * ''The Gentleman and the Jew'' (1950) *
Level Sunlight
' (1953) * ''The Professor And The Fossil'' (1956) *
Certain People of the Book
' (1955) * ''Little Did I Know: Recollections and Reflections'' (1963) *
Blood Accusation: the Strange History of the Beiliss Case
' (1966) * ''Light on Israel'' (1968) * ''In Praise of Yiddish'' (1971) * ''In the Beginning, Love: Dialogues on the Bible'' (collaboration) (1975)

References

*''

Who's Who In World Jewry The pronoun ''who'', in English, is an interrogative pronoun and a relative pronoun, used primarily to refer to persons. Unmarked, ''who'' is the pronoun’s subjective form; its inflected forms are the objective ''whom'' and the possessive ' ...

'', 1972 edition *Louis Kaplan, "On Maurice Samuel's twenty-fifth Yahrzeit - death anniversary of Jewish author", ''Judaism'', Fall 1997
Maurice Samuel Papers
Americanjewisharchives.org.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Samuel, Maurice 1895 births 1972 deaths 20th-century American Jews 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American novelists 20th-century British male writers 20th-century British novelists Alumni of the Victoria University of Manchester American male novelists American people of Romanian-Jewish descent American Zionists British Jews Jewish American novelists People from Măcin People from New York City Romanian Jews Socialist Party of Great Britain members United States Army personnel of World War I Yiddish–English translators Yiddish-language writers Romanian expatriates in France Romanian emigrants to the United Kingdom British emigrants to the United States Itzik Manger Prize recipients