Millennium Approaches 1.1
Summary
The opening begins with Rabbi Isador Chemelwitz from the Bronx Home for Aged Hebrews speaking impressively at the funeral of Sarah Ironson. Sarah was a resident at the Home for Aged Hebrews. She is the grandmother of a large Jewish family and yet she is being buried in a wooden pine box.
Rabbi Chemelwitz states that he did not know Sarah Ironson well enough to explain her qualities precisely and that she was a quiet person, but yet he knows her type.
The Rabbi preaches how Sarah had immigrated to America from Eastern Europe to make a home for her family.He also preaches that America does not exist, that America belongs to the ones that cause trouble with the elderly and authority figures. He then praises Sarah for having presence on the cultural beliefs of her family and that they could never accomplish what she has. She was the last of her kind.
Notes
- Star of David (15) - a six-pointed star formed from two equilateral triangles; an emblem symbolizing Judaism. Also called Shield of David.
- prayer shawl (15) - a shawl with a ritually knotted fringe at each corner; worn by Jews at morning prayer, also called a tallit, or talles.
- yarzheit candle (15) - Yarzheit is the Yiddish word given to the anniversary of a person's death.
- goyische (16) - Hebrew/Yiddish term for someone/thing which is not Jewish.
- Litvak (16) - the name given to Lithuanian Jews or to those who are associated with their religious beliefs.
- shtetl (16) - a small Jewish town or village formerly found throughout Eastern Europe.
- steppe (16) - A vast, semi-arid and grass-covered plain, as found in southeast Europe, Siberia, and central North America.
- Grand Concourse Avenue (16) - a street in the Bronx.
- Mohicans (17) a member of an American Indian tribe living in or around the Hudson Valley.
Commentary
The opening stage directions of this scene tell the reader that the time of the play starts in late October. Comparatively, the end of the year approaching signifies upcoming change in the lives of people. This scene is also full of forshadowing. Like The rabbi even says at the end of the scene that soon "All of the old world will be dead" (Kushner 17). The rabbi seems to be simply going through the motions with this funeral, as he has with many funerals in the past. He admits that he never knew Sarah Ironson, but he knows what kind of person she was.
He then becomes the first character in the play to criticize what America has become. While reflecting on what Sarah wanted in life, the rabbi talks about how the Jewish forefathers struggled so that their children " would not grow up here" (Kushner 16). He calls America "the meltingpot where nothing melted" (Kushner 16). By this, he means that America is composed of several groups of cultures, but they never really mixed, or melted, together. Such a divided community, the Jewish leaders think, was exactly what they were trying to run from by coming to the Americas.
Study Questions
- The beginning scene takes place at who's funeral?
- She is the grandmother of which character?
- What is the only non-Jewish name of one of Sarah Ironson's grandchildren?
- During the rabbi's eulogy he tells the family that Sarah was the kind of person that brought the villages with her to America. Where did these villages come from?
- What Great Voyages no longer exist?
- What was Sarah Ironson's husband's name?
- Rabbi Chemelwitz describes America as a “strange place, in the melting pot where nothing melted (16).” Does this mean that immigrants of different cultures and races do not fit into an integrated American society?
External Resources
The Myth of the Melting Pot: America’s Racial and Ethnic Divides.
Works Cited
- Kushner, Tony. Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1995.