Addressing the 1933 ‘Jews Worshipping Moloch’ Footage

Over recent years I have increasingly seen old video footage recycled of ‘jews worshipping Moloch’ at an event in the city of Chicago in 1933. This makes for great propaganda amongst conservative Christians, but how true is the claim that it depicts jews actually worshipping (and sacrificing children to) Moloch? (1)

The answer is ironically given by Walter Roth – the then President of the Chicago Jewish Historical Society – in his 2002 book ‘Looking Backward: True Stories from Chicago's Jewish Past’ when he talks about the event – ‘The Romance of A People’ which occurred on 3^rd July 1933 at Soldier Field.

Roth explains the background to ‘The Romance of A People’ as follows:

‘The greatest Jewish spectacle ever staged in Chicago took place on Monday evening, July 3, 1933, at Soldier Field, before more than 125,000 people. Sponsored by the Jewish Agency for Palestine, The Romance of A People was the culminating event of Jewish Day at A Century of Progress, the world's fair held along Chicago's lakefront. The fair was a colossal effort, planned for over five years, designed to emphasize the progress made by the United States, and by the city of Chicago, in the areas of technology, science and industry over the preceding hundred years.

Why a Jewish Day and why sponsorship by the Jewish Agency for Palestine? The Fair Committee had designated over two dozen special days, one for each of the nationalities that made up the immigrant population of Chicago, and was building a Hall of Religion for displays by Chicago's religious groups. Chicago's Zionists considered Palestine their homeland, and since the Jewish Agency represented the Jewish community in its dealings with the British Mandate authorities in Palestine, the Jewish Agency was the obvious choice to represent Jewish national aspirations.

At least, this was the choice of Meyer Weisgal, executive director of Zionist Activities for the Midwest. In his autobiography, So Far, Weisgal writes that in the early 1930s he formulated plans for a Chanukah pageant at Chicago's Opera House. The pageant was so successful that by 1932 he could proclaim, The Zionist Organization is today on the lips of every Jew and non-Jew in the city of Chicago.’ (2)

So, the event was actually a Zionist educational event designing to promote jewish history – primarily to jews as far as Roth’s narrative has it - and was run by Meyer Weisgal of the ‘Zionist Organization of America’ (hereafter ZOA).

It turns out the primary motivation for putting on ‘The Romance of A People’ pageant during the ‘Jewish Day’ at the ‘Century of Progress’ event in 1933 was actually nothing to do with non-jews or even the Third Reich beginning the process of taking back Germany from jewish degenerates and exploiters, but rather good old-fashioned intra-organizational politics within the ZOA and the Zionist movement in general.

Roth explains:

‘By 1921, at the time of the struggle between Chaim Weizmann and Louis D. Brandeis for control of the Zionist Organization of America, Weisgal was a propagandist for the Weizmann group and editor of The Maccabean, the first ZOA monthly magazine in English. According to Weisgal, when Chicago Jews were asked to participate in the fair, discussions went on for months about whether the Jews were a race, a religion, or a nation; whether they should be represented by a building; and if so, what kind of building?

After the success of his 1932 Chanukah pageant, Weisgal felt inspired: Not a building, not an exhibit, but a pageant portraying five thousand years of Jewish history. It would have everything religion, history, the longing for Zion, the return to Zion and it would be called The Romance of A People.'

Weisgal asked for and received the support of Rabbi Solomon Goldman and Judge Harry Fisher, two Chicago Zionist leaders. Then he went to see Rufus C. Dawes, president of the fair, a deeply religious man who loved his Bible. Weisgal was able to convince Dawes that Jews had four thousand years of history, from Abraham down to the present, that no one has! Dawes agreed to schedule a special Jewish Day at the fair, the grand finale of which would be a huge spectacle produced by Meyer Weisgal.

In addition to the Jewish Day program, a Jewish exhibit, to be housed in the Hall of Religion for the duration of the fair, was organized by non-Zionist Reform Rabbis Louis Mann and Gerson Levi. It consisted of a display of Jewish artifacts and portraits of famous Jews through the ages, illustrating their contributions to the fields of social science, education, religion, literature, medicine, philanthropy, agriculture, statesmanship, music, art, drama and child welfare. The design and planning was done by the architectural firm of Alfred S. Alschuler and Company. A. Raymond Katz was the painter of the murals.’ (3)

So, in essence ‘A Romance Of A People’ was actually conceived of by Weisgal as a platform to promote Chaim Weizmann not Louis Brandeis as the leader of political Zionism in the United States and not as ‘Moloch worship’ as some otherwise well-meaning people have wrongly styled it.

The events of that day are also chronicled by Roth in ‘Looking Backward’ when he writes how:

‘The Romance began at 8:15 p.m. The next day, under a front-page headline, 125,000 Witness Jewish Spectacle, Chicago Tribune reporter James O'Donnel Bennett wrote: One hundred and twenty-five thousand men, women and children of Chicagoland's Jewry unrolled on Soldier Field last night a gigantic scroll emblematic of the resounding Pentateuch, and thereon they read the story, now tragic, now triumphant, of their race's march down forty centuries to the new Palestine of today.

The giant Torah was placed on a huge four-level stage at the center of the arena, where a chorus of thousands of singers and dancers were massed. In an innovation at that time, 46 performers were positioned in a small room under the stage, unseen by the audience. Except for the massed chorus, these hidden performers supplied all the sound for the pageant. Twenty of the performers were singers, mostly cantors, and the rest were orchestra members, except for Ralph Schoolman, who read the narrative and was the Voice for the Romance. They were led by a conductor who in turn watched Isaac Van Grove, standing in the center of the stage to conduct the entire proceedings.

The stage was decorated with Stars of David and the new Zionist blue-and-white flag. A huge six-pointed star towered over the entire stage. Seven hundred and fifty dancing girls strewed flowers around the Torah. The Tribune report continued: The solemn, weighty voices of cantors intoned in Hebrew the opening lines of Genesis And God said Let there be light and there was light. Trumpets and multitudes of voices heralded the coming of the earths first dawn.

The pageant, which lasted about 90 minutes, was a tremendous success. The Tribune, having devoted 14 columns to a description of it, was apparently so impressed that the newspaper underwrote a re-enactment of the pageant for the following Thursday evening, July 6. This was accomplished, writes Weisgal, through Herculean efforts by the entire cast, but this time before a crowd estimated to be about 55,000.’ (4)

Reading Roth’s account, we can see that ‘A Romance Of A People’ was both intended primarily for a jewish audience – hence the use of the Zionist flag and later the flag of the state of Israel – and also as a way to promote Chaim Weizmann was the ‘leader of the jewish people’, while the event itself was a pageant of jewish history as interpreted by Zionists.

Heck Weisgal actually took ‘A Romance Of A People’ on the road to New York with some success with Roth noting:

‘Immediately after Jewish Day, Weisgal attempted to take the Romance on the road, but the God who had been so cooperative in Chicago let the rains come down in New York. The pageant had to be delayed and then performed indoors, though again with great success.’ (5)

Now no one at the time interpreted the ‘sacrificing babies to Moloch’ part of the ‘A Romance Of A People’ pageant as being ‘Moloch worship’ but rather covering the cautionary of jews backsliding into the worship of Moloch as outlined in the book of Leviticus in the Written Torah and the books of 1 and 2 Kings in the Tanakh.

S. J. Duncan-Clark writing for ‘The Chicago Daily News’ simply described the ‘worship of Moloch’ sequence as portraying ‘the grim struggle against the demon worship of Moloch’ which was echoed by the ‘New York Times’ coverage of the event. (6)

Indeed Duncan-Clark saw the event – rather absurdly I might add – as an ecumenical paean to ‘race-blind Americanism’ when he writes that:

‘Christian and Jew grasped hands with a new sense of spiritual kinship. There were thousands of Christians present. All Christian creeds had joined in approving and promoting the magnificent project of their Jewish neighbours.’ (7)

He sees this as an explicit response to the new ‘persecution of the jewish race’ by ‘Hitlerite Germany’ (8) but while this seems superficially plausible because American Zionists were violently opposed to the Third Reich (9) and were the main source of the failed but famous 1933 boycott of German goods (10) (which was actually a diplomatic victory for the Third Reich). (11)

Yet Roth makes clear that the ‘A Romance Of A People’ had been planned by Weisgal since 1932 and nothing to do with its planning or execution was in reference to the Third Reich. Duncan-Clark’s comments are merely mistaken delusions based on coincidence and nothing more.

Similarly, we can thus see that the 1933 ‘Jews Worshipping Moloch’ footage does not in fact show jews worshipping Moloch as much as we might like it to do so but rather it is simply a re-enactment of how the jews (often) fell into the worship of Moloch as a cautionary tale.

References

(1) You can watch snippets of the footage here: https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/scene-in-pageant-the-romance-of-a-people-at-kingsbridge-news-footage/1063807202

(2) https://www.juf.org/news/century.aspx?id=10766 alternatively https://www.wttw.com/a/chicago-stories-jewish-chicago-1833-1933

(3) Ibid.

(4) Ibid.

(5) Ibid.

(6) S. J. Duncan-Clark, ‘Jewish ‘Romance of a People’ Kindles Thrill of Faith in 150,000 Spectators’, The Chicago Daily News, 5^th July 1933; echoed by Anon., ‘125,000 SEE DRAMA OF ISRAEL AT FAIR; Jewish Day at the Chicago Exposition Climaxed by 'The Romance of a People.' CAST OF 6,200 TAKES PART Highly Effective Pageant of Music, Light and Masses Directed by Isaac Van Grove’, The New York Times, 4^th July 1933

(7) Duncan-Clark, Op. Cit.

(8) Ibid.

(9) Francis Nicosia, 2008, ‘Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany’, 1st Edition, Cambridge University Press: New York, p. 83

(10) https://web.archive.org/web/20090116052255/http://www.ajhs.org/publications/chapters/chapter.cfm?documentID=230

(11) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/the-origins-of-the-german-boycott