Solar Blaze Man
Formerly a lurker
Moloch / Baal Ceremony @ Soldier Field 1933 (World's Fair) - Internet Archive
I came across a short clip of this pageant on YouTube (it was on my recommendations
), and I decided to investigate its source and find a more complete recording of the event...
Well, it turns out I didn't have to look that far into the internet. The following ton of information comes from a «likely old» Jewish United Fund (JUF) article, which was copy-pasted on the upload to Internet Archive.
Inb4 someone jokingly asks "Did the JUF staff forget to delete the article?". There isn't a single bit of information in the report that could incriminate the Jews in normies' eyes, since the mock ritual [there's no actual child sacrifice] isn't mentioned.
By the way, I added a few extra data that I found on other [mainstream] websites. Feel free to contribute more information related to the topic.
Introduction
The Romance of A People was the culminating event of Jewish Day at A Century of Progress, the World's Fair held at Soldier's Field (along Chicago's lakefront), on the evening of July 3rd, 1933. Sponsored by the Jewish Agency for Palestine, the fair was a colossal effort that was planned for over 5 years, designed to emphasize the progress made by the United States, and by the city of Chicago; in the areas of technology, science and industry over the preceding 100 years.
The Fair Committee had designated over 2 dozen special days, one for each of the nationalities that made up the immigrant population of Chicago, and was building a Hall of Religion for displays by Chicago's religious groups. Chicago's Zionists considered Palestine their homeland, and since the Jewish Agency represented the Jewish community in its dealings with the British Mandate authorities in Palestine, that Agency was the obvious choice to represent Jewish national aspirations.
At least, this was the choice of Meyer Wolfe Weisgal, executive director of Zionist Activities for the Midwest. In his 1971 autobiography, "So Far", Meyer wrote that in the early 1930s he formulated plans for a Chanukah pageant at Chicago's Opera House. The pageant had been so successful that by 1932 he could proclaim: «The Zionist Organization is today on the lips of every Jew and non-Jew in the city of Chicago».
Weisgal's early life
Meyer was born to a Jewish family at Kikół (in the Congress Kingdom of Poland), on November 10th, 1894. His family emigrated to NY City in 1905, when Weisgal was just 11 years old, and he finished high school at Morris High School in the Bronx and studied journalism at Columbia University. His father, Shloime Chaim Weisgal, had come to work as a chazan (Hebrew word for "cantor") at the Tell Place Synagogue on the West Side of Manhattan. In 1911, the family moved to the Bronx borough, where Meyer became interested in Zionism.
By 1921, at the time of the struggle between Jaim Azriel Weizmann and Louis Dembitz Brandeis for control of the ZOA (Zionist Organization of America), Meyer was a propagandist for the Weizmann group and editor of The Maccabean, the first ZOA monthly magazine in English. According to Meyer, when Chicago's Jews were asked to participate in the fair, discussions went on for months about «whether the Jews were a race, a religion, or a nation; whether they should be represented by a building; and if so, what kind of building?».
The pageant
After the success of his 1932 Chanukah Festival in Chicago, Meyer felt inspired: «Not a building, not an exhibit, but a pageant portraying five thousand years of Jewish history». It would have everything religion, history, the longing for Zion, the return to Zion and it would be called The Romance of A People.
Meyer asked for and received the support of Rabbi Solomon Goldman and Judge Harry Fisher, 2 Zionist leaders from Chicago. Then he went to see Rufus Cutler Dawes (a businessman in oil and banking), who was the president of the World's Fair and «a deeply religious man who loved his Bible». Meyer was able to convince Rufus that «Jews had 4 000 years of history, from Abraham down to the present, that no one has!». Rufus agreed to schedule a special Jewish Day at the fair, the grand finale of which would be a huge spectacle produced by Meyer himself.
In addition to the Jewish Day program, a Jewish exhibit, to be housed in the Hall of Religion for the duration of the fair, was organized by 2 non-Zionist Reform Rabbis: Louis Mann and Gerson Levi. It consisted of a display of Jewish artifacts and portraits of famous Jews through the ages, illustrating their contributions to the fields of social science, education, religion, literature, medicine, philanthropy, agriculture, statesmanship, music, art, drama and child welfare. The design and planning was done by the architectural firm of Alfred S. Alschuler and Company. A. Raymond Katz was the painter of the murals.
Meyer gave the pageant all his time, by his account, he was the man in charge. He followed the general pattern of his Chanukah festival, but on a greater scale. Instead of dealing with a single holiday, the Romance would cover the period from the Creation to the 20th century. The authors of the text included the Rabbi Solomon Goldman, Meyer himself and a close friend of his: Maurice Samuel, a talented writer and influential Zionist. The music director, who also wrote the score, was Isaac Van Grove, a composer who had been a conductor of the Chicago Civic Opera and who had worked with Meyer on the Chanukah celebrations. The cantor Avrum Matthews, an opera and concert artist, was the leading singer.
Meyer stated that he had learned from his father and brother (who was a cantor too), how to stage a show with singers and dancers particularly on the Jewish holidays. He recruited 3 500 singers, actors and dancers from Jewish performing arts groups in Chicago, Indiana Harbor, Milwaukee and Waukegan. Among the music directors were Hyman Reznick, director of the Halevy Choral Society and musical director of the Board of Jewish Education in Chicago, and Evelyn Hattis Fox, a prominent community leader. The broadcasting director was Ralph Schoolman. Among the stage directors were Ben Zion Gordon and Ralph J. Halperin. Nathan Vizonsky directed the dancers.
Meyer also decided that he needed a famous speaker to fill Soldier Field, with its seating capacity of nearly 100 000 people. Thus, Meyer telephoned Chaim Azriel Weizmann (who was living in London at the time). Chaim was one of the most famous Zionist Jews in 1933, and «a brilliant orator at that». Meyer described their conversation like this:
MEYER: Hello, Dr. Weizmann, this is Meyer in Chicago.
CHAIM: Vos, bistu meshugge gevorn? Have you gone out of your mind? Is Chicago on fire again?
MEYER: No, but it will be when you come here. I want you to come to Chicago for Jewish Day.
CHAIM: What's that?
MEYER: (I explained as fast as I could).
CHAIM: What's in it for the movement?
MEYER: (With impressive emphasis and prayer in my heart) If you will come to Chicago for one day, and make only one speech, even if for only 5 minutes, I will give you $100 000 for any Zionist fund you designate.
CHAIM: Put it in writing.
Meyer promised in writing to raise $100 000 for Chaim's Central Refugee Fund, which helped German Jews to settle in Palestine, and he agreed to come to Chicago. Meyer also made sure to warn Chaim that he was limited to give only one speech. If he made 2 speeches, the fee would go down to $50 000; and if he made 3, to $25 000.
By 1933, Chaim Weizmann, who was born on 1874 in the village of Motol (in the Russian Pale of Settlement); had become an internationally famous organic chemist, «the hero of the Balfour Declaration» and a distinguished populist leader of the Jewish people.
Suddenly, national Jewish organizations decided to participate in Jewish Day. The ZOA shifted its convention to Chicago's Palmer House, the B'nai B'rith moved its annual meeting to this city, and national youth groups (including Avukah, a Zionist youth organization), scheduled a rally there for July 3rd.
In the days preceding Jewish Day, Jews flocked to Chicago, and on the day itself hundreds of extra policemen had to be called to handle the crowds. Thousands were already in Soldier Field in the afternoon, when Harry Berkman, a noted athlete, led 3 000 youths in marches and performances. Among the many prominent Jewish community leaders who came to Chicago was Nathan Strauss Jr., a New York philanthropist.
The Romance began at 8:15 PM. The next day (July 4th), under the front-page headline "125 000 Witness Jewish Spectacle", Chicago Tribune reporter James O'Donnel Bennett wrote: «125 000 men, women and children of Chicagoland's Jewry unrolled on Soldier Field last night a gigantic scroll emblematic of the resounding Pentateuch, and thereon they read the story, now tragic, now triumphant, of their race's march down forty centuries to the new Palestine of today».
A giant Torah was placed on a huge 4-level stage at the center of the arena, where a chorus of thousands of singers and dancers were massed. In an innovation at that time, 46 performers were positioned in a small room under the stage, unseen by the audience. Except for the massed chorus, these hidden performers supplied all the sound for the pageant. 20 of the performers were singers (mostly cantors), and the rest were orchestra members; except for Ralph Schoolman, who read the narrative and was the Voice for the Romance. They were led by a conductor who in turn watched Isaac Van Grove, standing in the center of the stage to conduct the entire proceedings.
The stage was decorated with «Stars of David» and the new Zionist blue-and-white flag. In addition, a huge six-pointed star towered over the entire stage. 750 dancing girls strewed flowers around the Torah. The Chicago Tribune report continued: «The solemn, weighty voices of cantors intoned in Hebrew the opening lines of Genesis And God said "Let there be light" and there was light. Trumpets and multitudes of voices heralded the coming of the earth's first dawn».
The pageant, which lasted about 90 minutes, was a tremendous social success. The Tribune, having devoted 14 columns to a description of it, was apparently so impressed that the newspaper underwrote a re-enactment of the pageant for the following evening of July 6th. Meyer wrote that «this was accomplished, through Herculean efforts by the entire cast, but this time before a crowd estimated to be about 55 000 people».
As for Chaim Weizmann, he arrived in Chicago on July 1st, and was greeted by an honorary reception committee of more than 100 people, headed by Bernard Horwich, a leading Chicago Zionist businessman and philanthropist. Chaim delivered a 10-minute speech on July 3rd before the pageant began. The exact text of his brief remarks isn't quoted anywhere; but apparently, he didn't deal with any substantive matter.
On July 6th, Chaim wrote to his wife Vera Weizmann: «It is hot here and difficult to work. Generally speaking, its been a success, but there is not much money here. The Jewish Day went off well. Everyone is praising the performance, though it was not to my taste». He spent most of his stay in Chicago at the ZOA convention, where he did give a series of substantive speeches about the situation in Palestine, pleading for funds to strengthen the refugee German Jewish community there and discussing his plans for dealing with the Arab-Jewish problem.
The British were reneging on their commitment to a Jewish homeland, and unrest was increasing in Palestine. In 1931, Chaim had been defeated in a bid for re-election as president of the World Zionist Organization, but he remained active in the movement, «devoting much of his time to rescuing European refugees, and especially helping German scientists escape to Palestine».
After meeting with Emir Feisal at Aqaba (a city of Hashemite Kingdom of Hejaz, which would later become part of Jordan) in 1918, he had hoped to reach an understanding with Arab leaders over the conflicting national aspirations of Jews and Arabs, saying that he believed that the 600 000 Arabs then living in that territory had exactly the same right to their homes [there] as «we have to our National Home».
Immediately after Jewish Day, Meyer attempted to take the Romance to New York City. However, bad weather conditions forced the pageant had to be delayed and then performed indoors, though again with social success.
Nonetheless, Meyer's socially successful pageant didn't make a profit. He could never stay within the established budget and the organizations that backed his efforts disliked his exorbitant spending. Some critics claimed that Meyer had taken Chaim's $100 000 from the New York receipts of the Romance, causing a loss there.
The aftermath
After that pageant, Meyer plunged into an even more spectacular project: a production of The Eternal Road by Franz Werfel, directed by Max Reinhardt with Norman Bel Geddes, and music by Kurt Weill. After expenditures that exceeded all expectations, the production opened in NY to critical praise and large audiences, but the investors lost all their money. The Eternal Road was produced again in Germany, nearly 70 years later.
After that, Weisgal went on to manage the Palestine Pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair in New York City, where he repeated his Chicago success. He presented Jewish Palestine as a nation among the nations of the world, raising the blue-and-white flag with its «Star of David» along with those of other sovereign nations, even though the State of Isnotreal - I mean, Israel, would not be recognized until 1948.
World War II ended Meyer's theatrical career. Chaim lived to be elected the first president of Israel in 1949. Upon his death in 1952, he was buried at Rehovot (in Israel); specifically in site of the Weizmann Institute of Science.
Meanwhile, Meyer served as the Institute's Chairman of the Executive Council from 1949 to 1966 and as its President from 1966 to 1969. Meyer passed away in 1977 and he was buried under the grounds of the Institute, near the Chaim Weizmann House.
Source:
Roth, W. (n.d.) Century of Progress: Jewish Day Pageant. Jewish United Fund (JUF) News. https://www.juf.org/news/century.aspx?id=10766
I came across a short clip of this pageant on YouTube (it was on my recommendations
), and I decided to investigate its source and find a more complete recording of the event...Well, it turns out I didn't have to look that far into the internet. The following ton of information comes from a «likely old» Jewish United Fund (JUF) article, which was copy-pasted on the upload to Internet Archive.
Inb4 someone jokingly asks "Did the JUF staff forget to delete the article?
". There isn't a single bit of information in the report that could incriminate the Jews in normies' eyes, since the mock ritual [there's no actual child sacrifice] isn't mentioned.By the way, I added a few extra data that I found on other [mainstream] websites. Feel free to contribute more information related to the topic.
Introduction
The Romance of A People was the culminating event of Jewish Day at A Century of Progress, the World's Fair held at Soldier's Field (along Chicago's lakefront), on the evening of July 3rd, 1933. Sponsored by the Jewish Agency for Palestine, the fair was a colossal effort that was planned for over 5 years, designed to emphasize the progress made by the United States, and by the city of Chicago; in the areas of technology, science and industry over the preceding 100 years.
The Fair Committee had designated over 2 dozen special days, one for each of the nationalities that made up the immigrant population of Chicago, and was building a Hall of Religion for displays by Chicago's religious groups. Chicago's Zionists considered Palestine their homeland, and since the Jewish Agency represented the Jewish community in its dealings with the British Mandate authorities in Palestine, that Agency was the obvious choice to represent Jewish national aspirations.
At least, this was the choice of Meyer Wolfe Weisgal, executive director of Zionist Activities for the Midwest. In his 1971 autobiography, "So Far", Meyer wrote that in the early 1930s he formulated plans for a Chanukah pageant at Chicago's Opera House. The pageant had been so successful that by 1932 he could proclaim: «The Zionist Organization is today on the lips of every Jew and non-Jew in the city of Chicago».
Weisgal's early life
Meyer was born to a Jewish family at Kikół (in the Congress Kingdom of Poland), on November 10th, 1894. His family emigrated to NY City in 1905, when Weisgal was just 11 years old, and he finished high school at Morris High School in the Bronx and studied journalism at Columbia University. His father, Shloime Chaim Weisgal, had come to work as a chazan (Hebrew word for "cantor") at the Tell Place Synagogue on the West Side of Manhattan. In 1911, the family moved to the Bronx borough, where Meyer became interested in Zionism.
By 1921, at the time of the struggle between Jaim Azriel Weizmann and Louis Dembitz Brandeis for control of the ZOA (Zionist Organization of America), Meyer was a propagandist for the Weizmann group and editor of The Maccabean, the first ZOA monthly magazine in English. According to Meyer, when Chicago's Jews were asked to participate in the fair, discussions went on for months about «whether the Jews were a race, a religion, or a nation; whether they should be represented by a building; and if so, what kind of building?».
The pageant
After the success of his 1932 Chanukah Festival in Chicago, Meyer felt inspired: «Not a building, not an exhibit, but a pageant portraying five thousand years of Jewish history». It would have everything religion, history, the longing for Zion, the return to Zion and it would be called The Romance of A People.
Meyer asked for and received the support of Rabbi Solomon Goldman and Judge Harry Fisher, 2 Zionist leaders from Chicago. Then he went to see Rufus Cutler Dawes (a businessman in oil and banking), who was the president of the World's Fair and «a deeply religious man who loved his Bible». Meyer was able to convince Rufus that «Jews had 4 000 years of history, from Abraham down to the present, that no one has!». Rufus agreed to schedule a special Jewish Day at the fair, the grand finale of which would be a huge spectacle produced by Meyer himself.
In addition to the Jewish Day program, a Jewish exhibit, to be housed in the Hall of Religion for the duration of the fair, was organized by 2 non-Zionist Reform Rabbis: Louis Mann and Gerson Levi. It consisted of a display of Jewish artifacts and portraits of famous Jews through the ages, illustrating their contributions to the fields of social science, education, religion, literature, medicine, philanthropy, agriculture, statesmanship, music, art, drama and child welfare. The design and planning was done by the architectural firm of Alfred S. Alschuler and Company. A. Raymond Katz was the painter of the murals.
Meyer gave the pageant all his time, by his account, he was the man in charge. He followed the general pattern of his Chanukah festival, but on a greater scale. Instead of dealing with a single holiday, the Romance would cover the period from the Creation to the 20th century. The authors of the text included the Rabbi Solomon Goldman, Meyer himself and a close friend of his: Maurice Samuel, a talented writer and influential Zionist. The music director, who also wrote the score, was Isaac Van Grove, a composer who had been a conductor of the Chicago Civic Opera and who had worked with Meyer on the Chanukah celebrations. The cantor Avrum Matthews, an opera and concert artist, was the leading singer.
Meyer stated that he had learned from his father and brother (who was a cantor too), how to stage a show with singers and dancers particularly on the Jewish holidays. He recruited 3 500 singers, actors and dancers from Jewish performing arts groups in Chicago, Indiana Harbor, Milwaukee and Waukegan. Among the music directors were Hyman Reznick, director of the Halevy Choral Society and musical director of the Board of Jewish Education in Chicago, and Evelyn Hattis Fox, a prominent community leader. The broadcasting director was Ralph Schoolman. Among the stage directors were Ben Zion Gordon and Ralph J. Halperin. Nathan Vizonsky directed the dancers.
Meyer also decided that he needed a famous speaker to fill Soldier Field, with its seating capacity of nearly 100 000 people. Thus, Meyer telephoned Chaim Azriel Weizmann (who was living in London at the time). Chaim was one of the most famous Zionist Jews in 1933, and «a brilliant orator at that». Meyer described their conversation like this:
MEYER: Hello, Dr. Weizmann, this is Meyer in Chicago.
CHAIM: Vos, bistu meshugge gevorn? Have you gone out of your mind? Is Chicago on fire again?
MEYER: No, but it will be when you come here. I want you to come to Chicago for Jewish Day.
CHAIM: What's that?
MEYER: (I explained as fast as I could).
CHAIM: What's in it for the movement?
MEYER: (With impressive emphasis and prayer in my heart) If you will come to Chicago for one day, and make only one speech, even if for only 5 minutes, I will give you $100 000 for any Zionist fund you designate.
CHAIM: Put it in writing.
Meyer promised in writing to raise $100 000 for Chaim's Central Refugee Fund, which helped German Jews to settle in Palestine, and he agreed to come to Chicago. Meyer also made sure to warn Chaim that he was limited to give only one speech. If he made 2 speeches, the fee would go down to $50 000; and if he made 3, to $25 000.
By 1933, Chaim Weizmann, who was born on 1874 in the village of Motol (in the Russian Pale of Settlement); had become an internationally famous organic chemist, «the hero of the Balfour Declaration» and a distinguished populist leader of the Jewish people.
Suddenly, national Jewish organizations decided to participate in Jewish Day. The ZOA shifted its convention to Chicago's Palmer House, the B'nai B'rith moved its annual meeting to this city, and national youth groups (including Avukah, a Zionist youth organization), scheduled a rally there for July 3rd.
In the days preceding Jewish Day, Jews flocked to Chicago, and on the day itself hundreds of extra policemen had to be called to handle the crowds. Thousands were already in Soldier Field in the afternoon, when Harry Berkman, a noted athlete, led 3 000 youths in marches and performances. Among the many prominent Jewish community leaders who came to Chicago was Nathan Strauss Jr., a New York philanthropist.
The Romance began at 8:15 PM. The next day (July 4th), under the front-page headline "125 000 Witness Jewish Spectacle", Chicago Tribune reporter James O'Donnel Bennett wrote: «125 000 men, women and children of Chicagoland's Jewry unrolled on Soldier Field last night a gigantic scroll emblematic of the resounding Pentateuch, and thereon they read the story, now tragic, now triumphant, of their race's march down forty centuries to the new Palestine of today».
A giant Torah was placed on a huge 4-level stage at the center of the arena, where a chorus of thousands of singers and dancers were massed. In an innovation at that time, 46 performers were positioned in a small room under the stage, unseen by the audience. Except for the massed chorus, these hidden performers supplied all the sound for the pageant. 20 of the performers were singers (mostly cantors), and the rest were orchestra members; except for Ralph Schoolman, who read the narrative and was the Voice for the Romance. They were led by a conductor who in turn watched Isaac Van Grove, standing in the center of the stage to conduct the entire proceedings.
The stage was decorated with «Stars of David» and the new Zionist blue-and-white flag. In addition, a huge six-pointed star towered over the entire stage. 750 dancing girls strewed flowers around the Torah. The Chicago Tribune report continued: «The solemn, weighty voices of cantors intoned in Hebrew the opening lines of Genesis And God said "Let there be light" and there was light. Trumpets and multitudes of voices heralded the coming of the earth's first dawn».
The pageant, which lasted about 90 minutes, was a tremendous social success. The Tribune, having devoted 14 columns to a description of it, was apparently so impressed that the newspaper underwrote a re-enactment of the pageant for the following evening of July 6th. Meyer wrote that «this was accomplished, through Herculean efforts by the entire cast, but this time before a crowd estimated to be about 55 000 people».
As for Chaim Weizmann, he arrived in Chicago on July 1st, and was greeted by an honorary reception committee of more than 100 people, headed by Bernard Horwich, a leading Chicago Zionist businessman and philanthropist. Chaim delivered a 10-minute speech on July 3rd before the pageant began. The exact text of his brief remarks isn't quoted anywhere; but apparently, he didn't deal with any substantive matter.
On July 6th, Chaim wrote to his wife Vera Weizmann: «It is hot here and difficult to work. Generally speaking, its been a success, but there is not much money here. The Jewish Day went off well. Everyone is praising the performance, though it was not to my taste». He spent most of his stay in Chicago at the ZOA convention, where he did give a series of substantive speeches about the situation in Palestine, pleading for funds to strengthen the refugee German Jewish community there and discussing his plans for dealing with the Arab-Jewish problem.
The British were reneging on their commitment to a Jewish homeland, and unrest was increasing in Palestine. In 1931, Chaim had been defeated in a bid for re-election as president of the World Zionist Organization, but he remained active in the movement, «devoting much of his time to rescuing European refugees, and especially helping German scientists escape to Palestine».
After meeting with Emir Feisal at Aqaba (a city of Hashemite Kingdom of Hejaz, which would later become part of Jordan) in 1918, he had hoped to reach an understanding with Arab leaders over the conflicting national aspirations of Jews and Arabs, saying that he believed that the 600 000 Arabs then living in that territory had exactly the same right to their homes [there] as «we have to our National Home».
Immediately after Jewish Day, Meyer attempted to take the Romance to New York City. However, bad weather conditions forced the pageant had to be delayed and then performed indoors, though again with social success.
Nonetheless, Meyer's socially successful pageant didn't make a profit. He could never stay within the established budget and the organizations that backed his efforts disliked his exorbitant spending. Some critics claimed that Meyer had taken Chaim's $100 000 from the New York receipts of the Romance, causing a loss there.
The aftermath
After that pageant, Meyer plunged into an even more spectacular project: a production of The Eternal Road by Franz Werfel, directed by Max Reinhardt with Norman Bel Geddes, and music by Kurt Weill. After expenditures that exceeded all expectations, the production opened in NY to critical praise and large audiences, but the investors lost all their money. The Eternal Road was produced again in Germany, nearly 70 years later.
After that, Weisgal went on to manage the Palestine Pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair in New York City, where he repeated his Chicago success. He presented Jewish Palestine as a nation among the nations of the world, raising the blue-and-white flag with its «Star of David» along with those of other sovereign nations, even though the State of Isnotreal - I mean, Israel, would not be recognized until 1948.
World War II ended Meyer's theatrical career. Chaim lived to be elected the first president of Israel in 1949. Upon his death in 1952, he was buried at Rehovot (in Israel); specifically in site of the Weizmann Institute of Science.
Meanwhile, Meyer served as the Institute's Chairman of the Executive Council from 1949 to 1966 and as its President from 1966 to 1969. Meyer passed away in 1977 and he was buried under the grounds of the Institute, near the Chaim Weizmann House.
Source:
Roth, W. (n.d.) Century of Progress: Jewish Day Pageant. Jewish United Fund (JUF) News. https://www.juf.org/news/century.aspx?id=10766
Last edited:
