Con Leventhal

A.J. Con Leventhal (9 May 1896 – 3 October 1979 ) was an Irish lecturer, essayist, and critic.

Early life and education Leventhal was born Abraham Jacob Leventhal in Lower Clanbrassil Street, Dublin on 9 May 1896. His parents were Rosa (née Levenberg) and Moses (Maurice) Leventhal. His father was a draper, and his mother was a poet. She was a Zionist, who was a founding member of the Women's Zionist Society. He lived in the "Little Jerusalem" of Dublin, the area around the South Circular Road, in his youth. He attended Wesley College, Dublin, and then Trinity College Dublin (TCD) to study modern languages. He edited the TCD student magazine in 1918. It was in TCD that he acquired the nickname "Con," an allusion to his father's job as a "Continental" agent. He joined the first Zionist commission and travelled to Palestine after World War I, and helped to found the newspaper, Palestine Weekly. He was then invited to join the Jewish National Fund's London office, and began working on the Zionist Review. He returned to Dublin to complete his degree in 1920, and in 1921 travelled to Paris where he met James Joyce. There are two known portraits of Leventhal, one by John Russell (1920) and a second by Avigdor Arikha. TCD and the Harry Ransom Center hold papers relating to Leventhal.