Essays in Jewish History by Lucien Wolf, London 1934, and the origins of the Norwood Jewish Orphanage.

Lucien Wolf’s parents, were Edward Wolf, born in the village of Hareth in Bohemia, and Celine, the daughter of Ludwig Redlich, a prosperous Viennese banker.  He was born in London on January 20th, 1857 and claimed to be a descendant of the Chacham Zvi Ashkenazi, whom I have written about previously, and who had visited London during the reign of Queen Anne.

Lucien was educated privately in London, Paris and Brussels, and at the early age of seventeen joined the staff of The Jewish World, which was a London newspaper of liberal Jewish opinion.  He rose to be a subeditor and leader writer, and at the age of twenty became assistant editor of the Public Leader, a daily paper.  In 1890 he was a foreign sub-editor and leader writer for the Daily Graphic, and then was also London correspondent of Le Journal of Paris.  He wrote essays in The Times and a column in the Fortnightly Review under the pen name of “Diplomaticus”.

He was well known as a journalist and was a subject for one of the famous caricatures in Vanity Fair.  In 1884 he published a biography of Sir Moses Montefiore, which was his first book.

He was sought out by Theodor Herzl, but had an adverse attitude to his Zionism.  However, he collaborated with Israel Zangwill in the formation of the Jewish Territorial Organization.

His eyesight began to fail from 1905, and he became less and less a journalist and increasingly a diplomat on behalf of the Jewish people., working with the Board of Deputies and the Anglo- Jewish Association.  During the negotiations in Paris, where he stayed for nine months after the First World War, he was the most prominent of the Jewish delegates.  He became known as the Foreign Minister of the Jewish People.

Lucien Wolf died in 1930, and this book, of his essays, originally intended to be a present to him on his 70th birthday in 1927, was published as a memorial, edited by Cecil Roth.

The chapter below was originally published in the Jewish Chronicle in 1895, and describes the history of the founding of the Norwood Jewish Orphanage, originally known as the Neve Zedek (Abode of Righteousness).