The Denver Jewish news., 1918-10-24

jew as Il man. In the place OF the
real jew. Frug never put himself. He
stayed aloof.
PentecOst.
A necromancer is the night,
The blue and silent night.
With fingers white she came to me
And closed my eyes from light.
She bound my eyes in silent sleep,
But woke the heart of me;
While in her white wings soft as sill
She wrapped me tenderly.
The green and lovely holiday,
With blue and fragrant air,
Lights upon every Blade of grass
The emerald hanging there.
\ summer night, tree, n flower.
Sweet sleep in freedom true
You fool. you fool. you doting fool
Does this concern jew?
Three stanzas typical of his Rus
sian lyrics spoiled by Il final spout
this concern Jew?" This is his
wnole attitude. Life is pregnant with
beauty. Frug and others like him
see its continual and repeated birth.
But the Jew is insensible TO it and
umimpressionable. The Jew is soul
less.
And suppose Frug's diatribc is justi-
fled. Is the Jew to he frowned upon
puerle or adolcscent to grow ccstatic
over the simple contemplation of u
summer night. tree. IL flower:' The
Jew is old in mind and soul and hia
long suffering has resulted in making
him philosophically Il pessimist. His
one last great optimism is Iionism.
He has lost the effervescence of youth.
the childish cXuberance over natural
beauty, which after all. the greatest
poets like Wordsworth and Goethe
surmount when they reach their ma
turity. The Jew can no longer be II
dilettante: the world. the universe. the
larger spirit of life are too much with
him. To him the gospel of art for
arts sake is pretty moonshine. the
stuff of which dreams are made. But
the dreams of childhood. unconnccted
with the larger events of the world,
are no longer possible TO him. The
Jew is an adult. and when lie does
concern himself with are. his cry Is
Art for life's sake"
Perez Hirshbein's three-act drama
"Grihne Fielder" (Green Fields) was
produced for the first time by the
Frcie Yiddishe Folks Buhnc at the
Neighborhood Playhouse. New York.
The company and the theatre direct
ors deserve the warmest of thanks for
this production. They have brought
to light genuine gem of the stage,
a play that is as ma turally sweet as
the fields which give it its name.
Green Fields" is one of the few plays
Is Jewish in language. in spirit. i'll
tradition. There is an atmosphere
about it which one instinctively asso.
ciates with Palestine. with dreams of
one, no matter how businessized. can
resist its appeal of Jewishness- No
one. no matter how Indifferent to
Jewish nationalism. can fail to un.
derstand that 'Grihne Fielder is II
pretty epic of .Iewishness. Why: 1t is
hard to tell 1t is play that flowers
Jewishness as naturally as the plant of
the earth yields its blossoms. One
must not think that "Grihne Fielder
breaches moral or seeks to make
propaganda. Hirshbein tells sim
pie tale of the loves of two Jewish
peasant couples who live on farm
that may he in Russia Gas the action
would lead one to Think or in a
Judaea of the future. Into the lives
of these girls and boys comes faint
wisps of trouble, light as the wind.
which gradually float away as quietly
as they appeared: the couple are beth.
rothed and-the play is ended. Beau
tifully simple, beautifully sincere. a
folk play in the most beautiful sense
of the word American Weekly Jew.
ish News.
THE LITTLE BROTHER"