A Flag Is Born was a play promoting the creation of a Jewish State in the ancient land of Israel. It opened on Broadway on September 4, 1946. The cast included
Paul MuniPaul Muni was an American stage and film actor.-Early life and career:He was born Meshilem Meier Weisenfreund to a Jewish family in Lemberg, Galicia, a province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Lviv, Ukraine....
,
Celia AdlerCelia Feinman Adler was an American Jewish actress, known as the "First Lady of the Yiddish Theatre".She was the daughter of Jacob Adler and Dinah Shtettin, and the older half-sister of Stella, Luther Adler and Jacob Adler's five other children...
and
Marlon BrandoMarlon Brando, Jr. was an American actor whose body of work spanned over half a century. He was named the fourth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute, and part of Time magazine's Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century He is widely considered one of the...
. Hollywood’s most successful screenwriter,
Ben HechtBen Hecht , , was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist...
was the playwright, it was directed by
Luther AdlerLuther 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....
with music by
Kurt WeillKurt Julian Weill , was a German, and in his later years American, composer active from the 1920s until his death. He was a leading composer for the stage...
. It was produced by the American League for a Free Palestine, an organization headed by
Hillel KookHillel 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.
A Flag Is Born was a play promoting the creation of a Jewish State in the ancient land of Israel. It opened on Broadway on September 4, 1946. The cast included
Paul MuniPaul Muni was an American stage and film actor.-Early life and career:He was born Meshilem Meier Weisenfreund to a Jewish family in Lemberg, Galicia, a province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Lviv, Ukraine....
,
Celia AdlerCelia Feinman Adler was an American Jewish actress, known as the "First Lady of the Yiddish Theatre".She was the daughter of Jacob Adler and Dinah Shtettin, and the older half-sister of Stella, Luther Adler and Jacob Adler's five other children...
and
Marlon BrandoMarlon Brando, Jr. was an American actor whose body of work spanned over half a century. He was named the fourth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute, and part of Time magazine's Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century He is widely considered one of the...
. Hollywood’s most successful screenwriter,
Ben HechtBen Hecht , , was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist...
was the playwright, it was directed by
Luther AdlerLuther 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....
with music by
Kurt WeillKurt Julian Weill , was a German, and in his later years American, composer active from the 1920s until his death. He was a leading composer for the stage...
. It was produced by the American League for a Free Palestine, an organization headed by
Hillel KookHillel 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 had only three characters.
Paul MuniPaul Muni was an American stage and film actor.-Early life and career:He was born Meshilem Meier Weisenfreund to a Jewish family in Lemberg, Galicia, a province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Lviv, Ukraine....
and
Celia AdlerCelia Feinman Adler was an American Jewish actress, known as the "First Lady of the Yiddish Theatre".She was the daughter of Jacob Adler and Dinah Shtettin, and the older half-sister of Stella, Luther Adler and Jacob Adler's five other children...
, major stars at the time, played Tevye and Zelda, survivors of the Treblinka death camp who are attempting to travel to the
Land of IsraelThe Land of Israel is, according to the Hebrew Bible, the region which was promised by their God to the descendants of Abraham through his son Isaac and to the Israelites, descendants of Jacob, Abraham's grandson. This land forms part of the Abrahamic, Jacob and Israel covenants...
, and
Marlon BrandoMarlon Brando, Jr. was an American actor whose body of work spanned over half a century. He was named the fourth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute, and part of Time magazine's Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century He is widely considered one of the...
, who played David, an angry young concentration camp survivor.
The play opens as the older couple halts for the night and Zelda lights
Shabbat candlesLighting Shabbat candles is a rabbinically mandated law in Judaism.Two candles or more are lit on Friday evening, 18 minutes before sundown, to welcome Shabbat. Candlelighting is traditionally done by the woman of the household, though in the absence of a woman, it is done by a man...
on a broken tombstone. Tevye recites the
ShabbatShabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from sundown Friday until the appearance of three stars in the sky on Saturday night...
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, and has a dream conversation with King David after which, in his dream, he stands before the council of the United Nations, England, 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,
KaddishKaddish ) 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 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 IsraelThe Land of Israel is, according to the Hebrew Bible, the region which was promised by their God to the descendants of Abraham through his son Isaac and to the Israelites, descendants of Jacob, Abraham's grandson. This land forms part of the Abrahamic, Jacob and Israel covenants...
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 Tevya's prayer shawl.
Although
Marlon BrandoMarlon Brando, Jr. was an American actor whose body of work spanned over half a century. He was named the fourth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute, and part of Time magazine's Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century He is widely considered one of the...
had already been voted "Broadway's Most Promising Actor" for his role as an anguished veteran in
Truckline CaféTruckline 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
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
.
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
IrgunIrgun was a militant Zionist group that operated in the British mandate of Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah...
fighters as "modern-day Nathan Hales," denounced London's policy of "taxation [in Palestine] without representation," quoted Thomas Jefferson's memorable phrase, "Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God," and used the motto, "It's 1776 in Palestine!" When Tevya speaks in his dream to the council of representatives of England, 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, 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 form had been destroyed by the Nazis; in most cases where their former homes survived, they were occupied by squatters, and across Poland and the Ukraine, when survivors returned home they were being murdered in the
Anti-Jewish violence in Poland, 1944-1946Anti-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 in Poland as well as Polish Jewish relations...
and parallel events in the 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 IsraelThe Land of Israel is, according to the Hebrew Bible, the region which was promised by their God to the descendants of Abraham through his son Isaac and to the Israelites, descendants of Jacob, Abraham's grandson. This land forms part of the Abrahamic, Jacob and Israel covenants...
, but the British Mandatory 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 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 FeuchtwangerLion 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.Feuchtwanger's fierce criticism of the Nazi Party—years before it assumed power—ensured that he...
, New York City Mayor
William O'DwyerWilliam O'Dwyer was the 100th Mayor of New York City, holding that office from 1946 to 1950.O'Dwyer was born in County Mayo, Ireland and migrated to the United States in 1910, after abandoning studies for the priesthood. He worked as a laborer, then as a New York City police officer, while...
, and
Eleanor RooseveltAnna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and assumed a role as an advocate for civil rights...
.
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 in Washington, D.C. However, in an early action of the
Civil rights movementThe Civil Rights Movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. It was accompanied by much civil unrest and popular rebellion. The process was long and tenuous in many countries, and most of these movements did not achieve or...
, 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 TheaterThere are at least two notable theaters called the Maryland Theater or Maryland Theatre*Maryland Theater *Maryland Theater...
in 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 TheaterThere are at least two notable theaters called the Maryland Theater or Maryland Theatre*Maryland Theater *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.