udaism is love!"

THE JEWISH STAGE

Perhaps no people has held so peculiar a position with regard to the
drama as the Jews. Little more than two centuries have passed since a
Jewish poet ventured to write a drama, and now, if division by race be
admissible in literary matters, Jews indisputably rank among the first
of those interested in the drama, both in its composition and
presentation.

Originally, the Hebrew mind felt no attraction towards the drama. Hebrew
poetry attained to neither dramatic nor epic creations, because the
all-pervading monotheistic principle of the nation paralyzed the free
and easy marshalling of gods and heroes of the Greek drama.
Nevertheless, traces of dramatic poetry appear in the oldest literature.
The "Song of Songs" by many is regarded as a dramatic idyl in seven
scenes, with Shulammith as the heroine, and the king, the ostensible
author, as the hero. But this and similar efforts are only faint
approaches to dramatic composition, inducing no imitations.

Greek and Roman theatrical representations, the first they knew, must
have awakened lively interest in the Jews. It was only after Alexander
the Great's triumphal march through the East, and the establishment of
Roman supremacy over Judaea, that a foothold was gained in Palestine by
the institutions called theatre by the ancients; that is, _stadia_;
circuses for wrestling, fencing, and combats between men and animals;
and the stage for tragedies and other plays. To the horror of pious
zealots, the Jewish Hellenists, in other words, Jews imbued with the
secular culture of the day, built a gymnasium for the wrestling and
fencing contests of the Jewish youth of Jerusalem, soon to be further
defiled by the circus and the _stadium_. According to Flavius Josephus,
Herod erected a theatre at Jerusalem twenty-eight years before the
present era, and in the vicinity of the city, an amphitheatre where
Greek players acted, and sang to the accompaniment of the lyre or flute.

The first, and at his time probably the only, Jewish dramatist was the
Greek poet Ezekielos (Ezekiel), who flourished in about 150 before the
common era. In his play, "The Exodus from Egypt," modelled after
Euripides, Moses, as we know him in the Bible, is the hero. Otherwise
the play is thoroughly Hellenic, showing the Greek tendency to become
didactic and reflective and use the heroes of sacred legend as human
types. Besides, two fragments of Jewish-Hellenic dramas