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Such tendency to theatricalize the Bible and such eagerness for novelty in the pulpit are doubtless what drew 1,000 ministers of many denominations from Manhattan, from Hartford, New Haven and Bridgeport, Conn., from Newark, Jersey City, Trenton and Camden, N. J., and from elsewhere to Manhattan last week for a special matinee of The Jazz Singer. This is a mediocre play on the boards since last fall (TIME, Sept. 28, THE THEATRE). It relates how the son of a Jewish cantor (synagog psalm-chanter)† joins a theatrical troupe as a black-face comedian against the wishes of the parent, how at the father's death the boy gives up his longed-for career to wail Israel's woes before the Sepher Torah (scroll of laws). George Jessel, onetime big-time vaudevillist, plays the son somewhat stiffly, haltingly, yet to the seeming satisfaction of audiences who appreciate anything that holds the Jew in no contempt.
At this special matinee there was unusual quietude in the theatre before the curtain went up. Ushers were surprisingly courteous, refused in the main the few tips offered, moved with a vicarious sanctity, hoped thereby for condonation for sins committed, planned or guarded against by a wilful ceinture de chastité. Pleasant greetings passed from pastor to pastor. Dr. William Bell Millar, General Secretary of the N. Y. Federation of Churches since 1921 and instigator of this coming together, was there. So too Dr. Samuel Parkes Cadman, pastor of the Central Congregational Church, Brooklyn, and Dr. Christian Fichthorne Reisner, pastor of Chelsea Church, Manhattan. Actor Jessel and his support walked through the play, mouthed their parts. The final curtain dropped. Then 37 ministers in the audience rose, asked Mr. Jessel to come and talk from their respective pulpits.
*Federal Council Bulletin, The Homiletic Review, The Expositor, Moody Monthly, etc.
*The Expositor.
†Josef Rosenblatt is the world's most famed cantor, has a voice of really operatic quality, refuses to commercialize it, yet last year had to play the Keith circuit to get money to pay debts forced upon him by the derelictions of another. Black-face Al Jolson is a cantor's son.