A Message from Arnold Mittelman After a career in not-for-profit and commercial theater spanning more than 40 years I was honored in 2007 to found the National Jewish Theater / Foundation and in 2010 to assume leadership of its Holocaust Theater International...
I Believe in the Coming of the Messiah [אני מאמין בביאת המשיח]
Author(s): Eliezer Yerushalmi
Set in a ghetto and in an extermination camp, the play asks, “Where is God?” Everyday life in the ghetto is portrayed from the women and children’s point of view. Conditions are bad, and the women seek help from the Judenrat, but there are no shelters. The kids, led by a child named Yossifun, play and build tents, solving the women’s problem of housing. A German officer offers to “help” the children, and takes them all from the ghetto. They travel by train to a camp where they are told to go to the showers, but they know these are the gas chambers. As Yossifun and his mother are heading for the showers, they hear singing about the coming of the Messiah. Yossifun’s mother manages to cheer him up, saying the Messiah is close, and they sing as they enter the gas chambers.
Format: Drama
Cast Size:10M/8F (plus optional 20 boys)
Snapshot
Nationality of Author: Israeli
Original Language: Hebrew
Publisher:
Hakibbutz HaArzi
Experience(s) Chronicled: The Ghettos | Women and the Holocaust | Concentration and Extermination Camps
HTC Insights
Views, reference and research of interest.
Lifetime Achievement Award
The National Jewish Theater Foundation presented its 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award to Alfred Uhry. The presentation took place as part of the Lincoln Center Library event on January 27th 2025 in commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on the 80th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz
Lifetime Achievement Award
On September 30, 2024, French playwright, Mr. Jean Claude Grumberg received the Lifetime Achievement Award. It was presented by NJTF HTII President, Arnold Mittelman with Dominique Trimbur, PhD-Manager for the History of Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, Teaching of the Holocaust of Fondation Pour La Memoir de la Shoah Project.