Lionel Abel was an eminent Jewish Americanplaywright, essayist and theater critic. He was also a translator, and was an authorized translator of Jean-Paul Sartre, who called Abel the most intelligent man in New York City. His first success was a tragedy, Absalom, staged off-Broadway in 1956 and winner of the Obie award. It was followed by three other works of drama, before he turned to criticism. He is best known for coining the term metatheatre in his book of the same title. He was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto II.
Biography
Born in Brooklyn, Abel was the son of Alter Abelson, a rabbi and poet, and of Anna Schwartz Abelson, a writer of short stories. His brother, Raziel Abelson was a professor emeritus of philosophy at New York University; he also had two sisters. He graduated from high school at the age of fourteen and moved out of his parents' home when he was fifteen, also shortening his name around this time. He attended St. John’s University in New York from 1926 to 1928, and then transferred to the University of North Carolina, which he attended from 1928 to 1929. However, he was expelled for publishing a magazine and never earned a college degree. Afterwards, he moved to Greenwich Village in New York. In 1939, he married Sherry Goldman, whom he later divorced. In 1970, Abel married Gloria Becker.
Abel was a vocal participant in the heated debate that followed the publication of Arendt's notable and controversial work Eichmann in Jerusalem, criticizing the work in "an outright frontal assault" published in the Partisan Review, the subsequent responses and counter-responses continued and appeared in several issues that followed. Dissent Magazine organised a public event for detractors and supporters of Arendt's work to discuss their position, which was attended by a packed audience of 500 people. Abel was invited to participate and accepted, though Arendt herself did not attend. The event quickly veered away from calm discussion and was marked by frequent interruptions. Later recountings described it variably as "passionate and exciting", "unruly", or as "ugly and outrageous, yet also urgent and afire", with attendees speaking in support of Arendt's work claiming they were "shouted down" and prevented from speaking their views. Raul Hilberg, who attended as a speaker, later described how: "I was not allowed to finish. A panelist pounded on the table with his fist. His banging, magnified by the microphone, was followed by a cascade of boos. ", and that the rest of the event consisted of audience responses in which audience members took to the microphone and proceeded to berate and disparage the participants speaking in support of Arendt. In a 1995 response letter to an article concerning Arendt by Tony Judt, both published in the NYRB, Abel expressed regret for having participated in the Dissent Magazine-organized event, stating that "It was not proper to address complex ideas as the Dissent meeting tried to do. "
