The first Jewish dramatist to use German was Benedict David Arnstein, of Vienna, author of a large number of plays, comedies and melodramas, some of which have been put upon the boards of the Vienna imperial theatre (Burgtheater). He was succeeded by L. M. Büschenthal, whose drama, "King Solomon's Seal," was performed at the royal theatre of Berlin. Since his time poets of Jewish race have enriched dramatic literature in all its departments. Their works belong to general literature, and need not be individualized in this essay.
In the province of dramatic music, too, Jews have made a prominent position for themselves. It suffices to mention Meyerbeer and Offenbach, representatives of two widely divergent departments of the art. Again, to assert the prominence of Jews as actors is uttering a truism. Adolf Jellinek, one of the closest students of the racial characteristics of Jews, thinks that they are singularly well equipped for the theatrical profession by reason of their marked subjectivity, which always induces objective, disinterested devotion to a purpose, and their cosmopolitanism, which enables them to transport themselves with ease into a new world of thought.[60] "It is natural that a race whose religious, literary, and linguistic development in hundreds of instances proves unique talent to adapt itself with marvellous facility to the intellectual life of various countries and nations, should bring forth individuals gifted with power to project themselves into a character created by art, and impersonate it with admirable accuracy in the smallest detail. What the race as a whole has for centuries been doing spontaneously and by virtue of innate characteristics, can surely be done with greater perfection by some of its members under the consciously accepted guidance of the laws of art." Many Jewish race peculiarities—quick perception, vivacity, declamatory pathos, perfervid imagination—are prime qualifications for the actor's career, and such names as Bogumil Davison, Adolf Sonnenthal, Rachel Felix, and Sarah Bernhardt abundantly illustrate the general proposition.
Strenuous efforts to ascertain the name of the first Jewish actor in Germany have been unavailing. Possibly it was the unnamed artist for whom, at his brother's instance, Lessing interceded at the Mannheim national theatre.
Legion is the name of the Jewish artists of this century who have attained to prominence in every department of the dramatic art, in every country, even the remotest, on the globe. Travellers in Russia tell of the crowds that evening after evening flock to the Jewish-German theatres at Odessa, Kiev, and Warsaw. The plays performed are adaptations of the best dramatic works of all modern nations. We outside of Russia have been made acquainted with the character of these performances by the melodrama "Shulammith," enacted at various theatres by a Jewish-German opera bouffe company from Warsaw, and the writer once—can he ever forget it?—saw "Hamlet" played by jargon actors. When Hamlet offers advice to Ophelia in the words: "Get thee to a nunnery!" she promptly retorts: Mit Eizes bin ich versehen, mein Prinz! (With good advice I am well supplied, my lord!).
The actor recalled by the recent centennial celebration of the first performance of "The Magic Flute" must have been among the first Jews to adopt the stage as a profession. The first presentation, at once establishing the success of the opera, took place at Prague. According to the Prager Neue Zeitung an incident connected with that original performance was of greater interest than the opera itself: "On the tenth of last month, the new piece, 'The Magic Flute,' was produced. I hastened to the theatre, and found that the part of Sarastro was taken by a well-formed young man with a caressing voice who, as I was told to my great surprise, was a Jew—yes, a Jew. He was visibly embarrassed when he first appeared, proving that he was a human being subject to the ordinary laws of nature and to the average mortal's weaknesses. Noticing his stage-fright, the audience tried to encourage him by applause. It succeeded, for he sang and spoke his lines with grace and dignity. At the end he was called out and applauded vigorously. In short, I found the Prague public very different from its reputation with us. It knows how to appreciate merit even when possessed by an Israelite, and I am inclined to think that it criticises harshly only when there is just reason for complaint. Hartung, the Jewish actor, will soon appear in other rôles, and doubtless will justify the applause of the public."
To return, in conclusion, to the classical drama in Hebrew. Though patterned after the best classical models, and enriched by the noble creations of S. L. Romanelli, M. E. Letteris, the translator of Faust, A. Gottloeber, and others, Hebrew dramas belong to the large class of plays for the closet, unsuited for the stage. This dramatic literature contains not only original creations; the masterpieces of all literatures—the works of Shakespere, Racine, Molière, Goethe, Schiller, and Lessing—have been put into the language of the prophets and the psalmists, and, infected by the vigor of their thought, the ancient tongue has been re-animated with the vitality of undying youth.
THE JEW'S QUEST IN AFRICA
Citizens of ancient Greece conversing during the entr'actes of a first performance at the national theatre of Olympia were almost sure to ask each other, after the new play had been discussed: "What news from Africa?" Through Aristotle the proverb has come down to us: "Africa always brings us something new." Hence the question: Quid novi ex Africa?[61]
If ever two old rabbis in the Beth ha-Midrash at Cyrene stole a chat in the intervals of their lectures, the same question probably passed between them. For, Africa has always claimed the interest of the cultured. Jewish-German legend books place the scenes of their most mysterious myths in the "Dark Continent," and I remember distinctly how we youngsters on Sabbath afternoons used to crowd round our dear old grandmother, who, great bowed spectacles on her nose, would read to us from "Yosippon." On many such occasions an unruly listener, with a view to hurrying the distribution of the "Sabbathfruit," would endanger the stability of the dish by vigorous tugging at the table-cloth, and elicit the reproof suggested by our reading: "You are a veritable Sambation!"—Aristotle, Pliny, Olympia, Cyrene, "Yosippon," and grandam—all unite to whet our appetite for African novelties.
Never has interest in the subject been more active than in our generation, and the question, "What is the quest of the Jews in Africa?" might be applied literally to the achievements of individual Jewish travellers. But our inquiry shall not be into the fortunes of African explorers of Jewish extraction; not into Emin Pasha's journey to Wadelai and Magungo; not into the advisability of colonizing Russian Jews in Africa; nor even into the rôle played by a part of northern Africa in the development of Jewish literature and culture: briefly, "The Jew's quest in Africa" is for the remnants of the ten lost tribes.