Joseph Leftwich (Zutphen September 28 1892 – Islington February 28 1983), born Joseph Lefkowitz, was a British critic and translator into English of Yiddish literature. Biography Leftwich was born in the Netherlands is known particularly for his 1939 anthology The Golden Peacock of Yiddish poetry, and his 1957 biography of Israel Zangwill. He was one of the 'Whitechapel Boys' group (the others being John Rodker, Isaac Rosenberg and Stephen Winsten) of aspiring young Jewish writers in London's East End, in the period roughly 1910–1914. He himself retrospectively coined the name, to include also the artists David Bomberg and Mark Gertler. Leftwich was a vegetarian and an active patron of the Jewish Vegetarian Society. He wrote biographies of vegetarian writers for The Jewish Vegetarian and an introduction for the book The Tree of Life, edited by Philip Pick, an anthology of essays on Judaism and vegetarianism. His daughter Joan married the American writer Joseph McElroy. Works War (1915) What will happen to the Jews? (1936) Along the Years, Poems: 1911–1937 (1937) The Golden Peacock: An anthology of Yiddish Poetry (1939) Yisroel: The First Jewish Omnibus (1933) The Tragedy of Anti-Semitism (1948) with A. K. Chesterton Israel Zangwill (1957) biography The Way We Think (2 volumes) (1969) editorAnthology of Modern Yiddish Literature (1974)A Distant Voice: An Autobiography of Samuel Lewin, translatorYears at the Ending : Poems 1892–1982 (1984)Soldier' song: Translation of Bálint Balassi's poem "Egy katonaének" (Hungarian) References BibliographyJoseph Leftwich at Eighty-Five: A Collective Evaluation'' (1978) External links The personal papers of Joseph Leftwich are kept at the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem. The notation of the record group is A330. Article on the Whitechapel Boys Obituary in JTA 1892 births 1984 deaths 20th-century English male writers 20th-century English poets British Jewish writers British vegetarianism activists English biographers English book editors English Jews English male non-fiction writers English male poets Hungarian–English translators Jewish poets Male biographers Whitechapel Boys