A Flag is Born
Encyclopedia
Paul Muni
Paul Muni was an Austrian-Hungarian-born American stage and film actor...
, Celia Adler
Celia Adler
Celia Feinman Adler was an American Jewish actress, known as the "First Lady of the Yiddish Theatre"....
and Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...
. Hollywood’s most successful screenwriter, Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist. Called "the Shakespeare of Hollywood", he received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some 70 films and as a prolific storyteller, authored 35 books and created some of...
, was the playwright; it was directed by Luther Adler
Luther Adler
Luther Adler was an American actor best known for his work in theatre, but who also worked in film and television. He also directed plays on Broadway.-Life and career:...
with music by Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
. It was produced by the American League for a Free Palestine, an organization headed by Hillel Kook
Hillel Kook
Hillel Kook , also known as Peter Bergson , was a Revisionist Zionist activist, politician, and prominent member of the Irgun.-Early life:...
, known in America by the anglicized name Peter Bergson.
The play
The play had three principal characters, though several other actors played bit roles. Paul MuniPaul Muni
Paul Muni was an Austrian-Hungarian-born American stage and film actor...
and Celia Adler
Celia Adler
Celia Feinman Adler was an American Jewish actress, known as the "First Lady of the Yiddish Theatre"....
, major stars at the time, played Tevye and Zelda, survivors of the Treblinka death camp who are attempting to travel to the Land of Israel
Land of Israel
The Land of Israel is the Biblical name for the territory roughly corresponding to the area encompassed by the Southern Levant, also known as Canaan and Palestine, Promised Land and Holy Land. The belief that the area is a God-given homeland of the Jewish people is based on the narrative of the...
, and Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...
, who played David, an angry young concentration camp survivor.
The play opens as the older couple halts for the night and Zelda lights Shabbat candles
Shabbat candles
Shabbat candles are candles lit on Friday nights, 18 minutes before sunset, to usher in the Jewish Sabbath.Lighting Shabbat candles is a rabbinically mandated law. Candlelighting is traditionally done by the woman of the household, but in the absence of a woman, it may be done by man...
on a broken tombstone. Tevye recites the Shabbat
Shabbat
Shabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until a few minutes after when one would expect to be able to see three stars in the sky on Saturday night. The exact times, therefore, differ from...
prayers, then dreams of the town where he was born, as it was before it was destroyed by the Nazis. He then dreams of King Saul at the battle of Gilead
Ramoth-Gilead
Ramoth-Gilead, , is a city of refuge east of the Jordan river; called "Ramoth in Gilead"...
, and has a dream conversation with King David after which, in his dream, he stands before the council of the United Nations
United Nations Security Council
The United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers, outlined in the United Nations Charter, include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of...
, Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union, and pleads for the formation of a Jewish State. They ignore him.
When Tevye awakens, he finds that Zelda has died during the night. He recites a traditional Jewish memorial prayer, Kaddish
Kaddish
Kaddish is a prayer found in the Jewish prayer service. The central theme of the Kaddish is the magnification and sanctification of God's name. In the liturgy different versions of the Kaddish are used functionally as separators between sections of the service...
, and welcomes the Angel of Death
Angel of Death
Angel of Death may refer to:- Religion :Hebrew Bible* Destroying angel , the angel of Passover, the destroying angel of 2 Samuel 24Later Judaism* Michael , carries Adam to his grave in some texts* Gabriel - angel of death over kings...
who has come for him. As the young hero, David, considers committing suicide, three Jewish soldiers appear and promise to take him with them to the Land of Israel
Land of Israel
The Land of Israel is the Biblical name for the territory roughly corresponding to the area encompassed by the Southern Levant, also known as Canaan and Palestine, Promised Land and Holy Land. The belief that the area is a God-given homeland of the Jewish people is based on the narrative of the...
to fight for Jewish independence. In the play's stirring finale, David delivers a moving Zionist speech and marches off to fight for Jewish freedom holding a Zionist flag made out of Tevye's prayer shawl.
Although Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...
had already been voted "Broadway's Most Promising Actor" for his role as an anguished veteran in Truckline Café
Truckline Cafe
Truckline Cafe was the title of a 1946 Broadway play written by Maxwell Anderson, directed by Harold Clurman, produced by Elia Kazan, and starring Marlon Brando and Karl Malden...
, the play was not a commercial success and Brando was still young, relatively unknown and impecunious. Nevertheless, he explained that he desperately believed that the survivors of the Holocaust deserved to have their own land where they could live free from oppression and the anti-Semitic tyranny of the outside world, and accepted only the Actor's Equity minimum payment, enabling the play’s proceeds to go to helping create the state of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
.
In promoting the play, the Bergson Group emphasized the parallels between the American and Jewish struggles for independence and the Jewish fighters in Israel to the heroes of the American Revolution. Ads portrayed Irgun
Irgun
The Irgun , or Irgun Zevai Leumi to give it its full title , was a Zionist paramilitary group that operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization haHaganah...
fighters as "modern-day Nathan Hale
Nathan Hale
Nathan Hale was a soldier for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He volunteered for an intelligence-gathering mission in New York City but was captured by the British...
s," denounced London's policy of "taxation [in Palestine] without representation," quoted Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
's memorable phrase, "Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God," and used the motto, "It's 1776 in Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
!" When Tevye speaks in his dream to the council of representatives of Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union, he compares Palestine in the 1940s with the American colonies in the 1770s. The cover of the program was sketch of three young Jews, one with a gun, one with a hoe
Hoe
Hoe may refer to:* Hoe , a hand tool used in gardening* Hoe , a Korean dish of raw fish* Plymouth Hoe, a public space in Plymouth, England* Hoe, Norfolk, a village in Norfolk, England* USS Hoe , a World War II US submarine...
, and one with a Zionist flag, and in the background the famous illustration of three figures from the American revolution playing drums and flute.
"A Flag is Born" played in six North American cities and raised more than $400,000 for the ALFP, the largest block of funds it ever attained.
Historical context
At the end of World War II there were hundreds of thousands of Jewish Holocaust survivors living in Displaced Persons camps in Europe. The Jewish communities they came from had been destroyed by the Nazis; in most cases where their former homes survived, they were occupied by squatters, and across Poland and Ukraine, when survivors returned home they were being murdered in the anti-Jewish violence in Poland, 1944-1946Anti-Jewish violence in Poland, 1944-1946
Anti-Jewish Violence In Poland, 1944–1946 refers to a series of violent incidents that immediately followed the end of the Second World War in Poland and influenced postwar history of Jews as well as Polish Jewish relations. The exact number of Jewish victims is a subject of debate, but the range...
and parallel events in Ukraine.
The few countries that were willing to accept refugees had immigration restrictions and long waits for visas. The great majority of Displaced Persons wished to immigrate to the Land of Israel
Land of Israel
The Land of Israel is the Biblical name for the territory roughly corresponding to the area encompassed by the Southern Levant, also known as Canaan and Palestine, Promised Land and Holy Land. The belief that the area is a God-given homeland of the Jewish people is based on the narrative of the...
, but the British Mandatory
British Mandate
British Mandate may refer to:*British Mandate for Palestine*British Mandate of Mesopotamia...
government of Palestine was refusing to admit more than a tiny number of Jews.
The ALFP was entirely open about its motivations for producing this play; its publicity materials read: "'A Flag is Born' is not ordinary theatre. It was not written to amuse or beguile. 'A Flag is Born' was written to make money--to make money to provide ships to get Hebrews to Palestine ... and [to] arouse American public opinion to support the fight for freedom and independence now being waged by the resistance in Palestine."
Reception and impact
The play was extremely popular, the Broadway run was extended and a tour was arranged. The sponsoring committee included many prominent people, including composer Leonard BernsteinLeonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
, novelist Lion Feuchtwanger
Lion Feuchtwanger
Lion Feuchtwanger was a German-Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht....
, New York City Mayor William O'Dwyer
William O'Dwyer
William O'Dwyer was the 100th Mayor of New York City, holding that office from 1946 to 1950.-Biography:O'Dwyer was born in County Mayo, Ireland and migrated to the United States in 1910, after abandoning studies for the priesthood...
, and Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...
.
Following the Broadway run, “A Flag is Born" traveled to Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Boston. It was also scheduled to play at the National Theater
National Theatre (Washington, D.C.)
The National Theatre is located in Washington, D.C., and is a venue for a variety of live stage productions with seating for 1,676.Despite its name, it is not a governmentally funded national theatre, but operated by a private, non-profit organization....
in Washington, D.C. However, in an early action of the civil rights movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
, Americans who opposed racial discrimination began a boycott to oppose the practice of barring blacks from attending Washington theaters, and the committee moved the play to the Maryland Theater
Maryland Theater
There are at least two notable theaters called the Maryland Theater or Maryland Theatre*Maryland Theater *Maryland Theater...
in Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
. A special train brought members of Congress to the performance. The American League for a Free Palestine and the NAACP cooperated to use the occasion to force the management of the Maryland Theater to abrogate its segregation policy (blacks restricted to the balcony) for the duration of the play’s run which, in the context of the times, was considered a victory for civil rights.