Seventeen scenes depicting the history of the ancient ceremonial of Chanukah, or the Feast of Lights, throughout the ages and in all parts of the world, will be presented in the Chicago Civic Opera House on the nights of Dec. 13 and 14, as the second all-Chicago Chanukah Festival of Chicago’s Jewry.
The performance, entitled “Light of the Maccabees”, will attempt to achieve, on an even grander scale, repetition of the spectacle witnessed last year when the first annual Chanukah festival was presented before an overflow audience of 25,000 persons in the Chicago Stadium on Christmas night.
Isaac Van Grove, creatro of last year’s festival and director of “The Romance of a People”, the gigantic spectacle which played in Chicago and New York, is acting in an advisory capacity for this year’s presentation. Charles K. Freeman, dramatic director of last year’s production and director of dramatics at the Jewish People’s Institute of Chicago, will serve as director this year. He is co-author of the script with David Edelstadt Hirsch. Julia Levine is musical director. H. L. Meites is chairman of production.
Seventy-five Jewish organizations will participate in the work of arranging details of the festival’s production under the leadership of the Zionist Organization of Chicago, of which Max Shulman is president, and general chairman of this event.
A cast of more than 1,000 has been chosen for the spectacle. The cast includes such renowned actors as Mordecai Hershman, world-famous cantor; Francis X. Bushman, motion picture star; Roger DeKoven, featured player in “Counselor-at-Law”; Nathan Vizonsky, noted dancer; Jane Willett Taylor, and others of prominence in the world of the theater. A huge choral organization and instrumental music will supplement the dramatic action throughout the extensive and impressive ceremony.
MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR SILK AT UPTOWN TALMUD TORAH
Memorial exercises for the late Benamin Silk, principal of the Uptown Talmud Torah Association of the Harlem Hebrew Institute, 142 E. 111th Street, will be held this evening. Mr. Silk was principal for fourteen years and affiliated with the institution thirty years.
Among the speakers will be Samuel Bayer, president; Samson A. Schneider, David L. Isaacs, Rev. Dr. Henry A. Schorr, Rabbi George Abelson, Solomon Citron and A. I. Kalb, who will direct the musical ceremonies.
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