ABSTRACT
In 1932 in Chicago, a pageant was performed at the Hanukkah Festival which, in many respects, formed a link to the tradition of the pageantry movement developed in the 1910s. It took place on 25 December, the second day of the Hanukkah Festival week, which commemorates an important event in Jewish history: the revolt of the Maccabees against the Greek oppressors in 165 BC. The revolt was provoked by a decree issued by the Greek King Antiochus in 168 BC to worship Zeus of Olympia. This historical event formed the subject of a pageant which bore the title Israel Reborn. Isaac van Grove acted as Master of the Pageant; he was the former Director of the Chicago Civic Opera, Chief Manager of the Cincinnati Summer Opera and served as Musical Director of all the American Zionist pageants discussed here. Van Grove wrote the play, composed the music and conducted the performance. When asked about the model he was following, he did not name a pageant of the 1910s, but explained instead that he had in mind something in the line of Max Reinhardt’s spectacular productions such as The Miracle, which toured the United States in 1924. As was usual in a pageant, the cast was made up of professionals and amateurs – hundreds of Jewish schoolchildren formed the chorus. All the Jewish communities in Chicago were involved in the preparation of the performance. Volunteers sewed the costumes, organized publicity and sold the tickets. In one respect, however, the pageant deviated from the tradition of the 1910s. The action did not unfold on the historical, authentic site where the event to be depicted had actually occurred, but instead in the Chicago stadium; 25,000 spectators attended and the performance was an overwhelming success.1
