In the professional sense Jewish theatre does not emerge until the second half of the nineteenth century. Its establishment was the consequence of two hundred years of socio-economic processes which revolutionized the structure of Jewish society. These processes had a crucial influence on the various languages used by the Jews and eventually determined which ones would be spoken on Jewish stages.

The late fifteenth century and the whole of the sixteenth century were dark years for the Jewish people, and the Jews of Italy did not escape the grim fate of their brothers. Old decrees were resuscitated and reinforced by a succession of newly-passed harsh measures. Expulsion, forced wearing of the humiliating Jewish badge, censorship of books, the burning of the Talmud and pogroms inspired and led by zealous Christians, were daily occurrences. It is during those tragic years that an astonishing phenomenon emerges on the Italian scene: Jews engage in the performing arts with passion and play an important role in the development of spectacles and shows. They do so in defiance of internal opposition; the fierce objection of Rabbis, ever since Talmudic times, to any form of theatrical entertainment, had never abated.

The following comparison between the Yiddish ‘Shund’ play Dos Yudishe Hertz by Joseph Lateiner and August von Katzebue's most popular melodrama Menschenhass und Reue aims to throw light on a very significant aspect of the Yiddish ‘Shund’ Theatre. I believe that the conclusions of this comparison show how Yiddish ‘Shund’ playwrights tried to answer their audience expectations and how they manipulated their audience by trying to evoke a certain kind of response.

In Why We Need Broadway, the American scholar and critic Stanley Kaufmann depicts the theatre auditorium as the last remaining public meeting place for the lonely souls who together constitute Western society, a place where the concept of a public still exists, a place which attracts individuals who have paid out of their own pockets for a ticket which entitles them to share a personal experience with the strangers seated beside them in the dark, and with whom, for one evening, they become a community – or at least the closest thing to a community possible in the Western city of today.

From a contemporary Israeli perspective there is a clearly discernable connection between the concrete expressions of the national theatrical culture and some of the most comprehensive and fundamental ideological assumptions of this society. These assumptions are primarily based on its Jewish culture and religion and the national movement of Zionism as it has developed ideologically as well as practically during the last century, in particular through the establishment of the state of Israel. This article will examine the expression of some of these ideological trends and developments in the Hebrew and Israeli theatrical culture from the early 19208 until the mid-1970s.

On the Hebrew Stage, Greek and Roman drama was never a first priority, The Habima Theatre, from its inception in 1917 to the present day, staged only six classical productions (out of more than four hundred), the Cameri Theatre – four, the Haifa Municipal Theatre – five, the Ohel theatre, in all of its forty-four years of activity (1925–69), although it staged 163 plays, never found the need or drive to produce a Greek or a Roman drama, and the young Beer-Sheba Theatre, the last addition to Israel's theatrical establishment, although daring and innovative, has yet to venture into the classical world. The reasons are not far to seek, and there are weighty local reasons in addition to the general cultural factors, which have contributed to the scarcity of classical drama productions. Hellenism and Hellenization, according to the view held even today by some educated and secular Israelis, are not neutral entities. The terms themselves are polemic, connote cultural assimilation, and stand for departure from national Jewish values and the forfeit of cultural originality and independence. From the times of the Hebrew Enlightenment movement, however, classical languages and culture became an integral part of the curriculum of Jewish studies even in religious institutions of higher learning, such as the Bar-Ilan University. On the other hand, as a reaction to the classical culture becoming an embodiment of secular, anti-clerical Zionist renaissance, the extreme Orthodox establishment in contemporary Israel has continued to treat it as a dangerous desecration and even extended the derogatory use of the term ‘Hellenization’ to cover the entire Western cultural influence. As a result until today classical literature has only a marginal place in the high-schools' curriculum, it is not an immediate, and certainly not the most important source from which Hebrew writers and playwrights draw their inspiration, and even well educated spectators have at best only a very superficial knowledge of the classical heritage. The few classical plays produced on the Hebrew stage were chosen at random, chiefly because leading or popular directors insisted on directing a certain play, or because a play, which achieved success in Europe, was transplanted lock, stock and barrel to Israel, sometimes together with its director.

Hanoch Levin, born 1943, is one of Israel's best known and most widely performed playwrights, and the author of some 20 strikingly morbid plays (as well as numerous short stories and many beautiful lyrics). Levin's drama has proved to be both an artistic and a commercial success. His political cabaret shows You, I and the Next War (1968) and Queen of the Bathtub (1970), ridiculed the self-righteous complacency of Israeli society after the overwhelming victory of the Six Day War in 1967. Levin, like the slave in triumphal processions of ancient Rome, stood behind hubrisridden Israel, whispering ‘memento mori’, and so, quite naturally, caused a local scandal. Levin mocks highly esteemed army generals, and he uses (or abuses) the sacred myth of the Akeda, the binding of Isaac, when he is about to be offered as a sacrifice by Abraham (Genesis 22): ‘Dear father, when you stand by my grave … do not be too proud … and ask me to forgive you’, says dead Isaac, a ‘live’ metaphor for the blood spilt in vain, in Levin's sacrilegious version. The Israeli censor found it necessary to ban The Patriot (1983), a reaction to the stupidity and futility of the Lebanon War, until some modifications were entered.