Summary

The action from the previous scene is continuous, as a new scene titled “Cast and Producer Arrested for Obscenity” begins. Stage directions describe how “Rabbi Joseph Silverman appears on a pulpit” while “Lemml and [Asch] remain frozen” (51).

A title suggests that Silverman is speaking in English as he speaks to his congregation about how every time he reads a sensational, crime-related headline, he prays that none of the criminals is Jewish. That, he says, “is what it means to be Jewish in America” (51).

Silverman continues to speak as the action moves into a new scene, titled “Rabbi Silverman – A sermon, Temple Emanu-El.” He suggests that every day, Jews struggle to improve their own lives and the lives of their fellow Jews, immigrants and citizens alike, all in the hope of escaping “the massacres spreading through Europe” (51). He adds that they go to...