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LEGAL CHRONICLE
THE DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and THE

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How the Daily Newspapers
Welcome
`The Romance of a People'
To Detroit

Excellent Editorial Tributes to the Pageant by the Detroit Free
Press and the Detroit News.

Editorial from Detroit News April 9, 1931

ROMANCE OF A PEOPLE

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"The Romance of a People," the pageant
of Jewish history which Detroit will see
April 16, may be judged beforehand in one
important particular. By its very nature its
appeal must be wide, embracing the non-
Jew as well as those of the pure racial strain.
Such an appeal is inseparable from any rev-
elation of Jewish history.
This is true because no western people
can tell its own story without driving deeply
into the story of Israel. Religious faith is a
vital part of any national history.. The pre-
dominant faith of Europe was cradled in
Judea, took innumerable oracles and com-
mandments from the Old Testament and, in
the plain speech of its Founder, sought not
to destroy but to fulfill. The immense im-
-ulse of Chri:tianity can not be compre-
hended without an understanding of its
parent-impulse, which is Judaism.
What is true of faith is also true of cul-
ture. The very fact of dispersion—lament-
ed by Jews down the centuries, has worked
Jewish principles of art and thinking into
the culture of every western nation. Music,
drama, literature, philosophy and a host of
other humanistic fields owe incalculable
debts to the presence of Jews, far from their
homeland, accommodating their brains and
talents to the western societies which, how-
ever grudgingly at first, finally gave them
welcome.
Religion and culture could be called a pair
of pillars on which the structure of history,
at least in part, reposes. We are assured
that "The Romance of a People" is a corn-
prehensive spectacle, that it reveals pictori-
ally 4,000 years of Jewish history; ancient
Palestine, the Egyptian bondage, the glory
of Solomon, the Roman conquest, the lofty
station of Jewry in medieval Spain, the de-
velopment of Chassidic mysticism and.
finally, the rebuilding of Palestine in our
own day. The mere enumeration of these
episodes proclaims how deeply and how im-
portantly they have affected the record of
the western nations.

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k (law- sal from Detroit

Press of

THE ROMANCE OF A PEOPLE

Just as the theater developed out of the
mystery and morality plays of the early
church, so occasionally do religion and his-
tory turn back to the stage as the medium
by which their inherent drama may best be
presented. This is true of "The Romance
of a People," to be given in Detroit for the
week beginning April 16.

Originally prepared as the climax of
Jewish Day at the Century of Progress last
summer in Chicago, its spectacular value
was so definite as to call forth spontaneous
requests for its repetition. Since that time
thousands of people in Chicago, New York,
Philadelphia and Cleveland have witnessed
the episodes interpreted through rhythm,
music and light sweeping up to the libera-
tion of that race which has crossed all cur-
rents of history: The highlight of the pag-
eant is the emergence of the Chassidic cult,
"chassid" meaning "pious," which centuries
ago expressed joy in humility, fervid delight
in misery and the heightened sense of defi-
nite personal relationship to God.

An artistic achievement of universal
appeal, using the instruments of history,
"The Romance of a People" is not propa-
ganda, for all its timeilness and the employ-
ments of its proceeds for the settlement of
German-Jewish refugees in Palestine. Its
moral is implied, not stated; its entertain-
ment and educational value obvious.

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