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Jewish American Theater: A History

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There is the story of the rabbinical student who, after a great deal of soul-searching, told his mentors that he decided to change his career goals and become a Stage Director. His teachers were shocked. But, the student explained that he was really not doing anything too drastic because he felt he was just going into another branch of the theater.

He may have had something there when you think just how presentational all religions really are. And, Judaism is no exception. There is a great deal of pageantry, spectacle, poetry, musicality, visual appeal, costuming and since the services are interactive between those leading the service and the audience; oops, congregants. So the transformation or metamorphosis from religious leader rabbi to stage director or actor may not be such a stretch at all.

When we think of how many Jews find their life work in the arts, particularly in the performing arts, and more particularly in the theater, it is easy to guess that when and where ever a Jewish community was established in the New World whatever theater there may have been might well have involved those with their roots in Judaism.

The United States is a relatively young country. The history of our nation's theater goes back to its very roots. Where the beginning of Jews and Judaism can be found on the continuum of that history depends, perhaps, on how we define what it is we are measuring. At the very least, we can employ the vast search engine, Google, to offer a simple time line based on its indexed pages mentioning "Jewish American Theater History" as our parameters. Click HERE to see that time line.

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