In the fifth century B.C., the Jews of Persia were saved from a plot to murder them. Their deliverance, narrated in the Scroll of Esther, is celebrated each year on the holiday of Purim in the Hebrew month of Adar (February/March). The holiday includes a variety of performances: masquerade, pranks, intoxication and general licentiousness pervade the holiday and contribute to the inversion of the social order that is its hallmark. One major performance is the ceremonial public reading of the Scroll of Esther, where the ralson d'être for the holiday is retold. During the reading, the villain Haman is smitten by the listeners, who make loud noises to kill the sound of his name each time it is mentioned. A second opportunity for performance is the festive meal, which may feature extended parodies and folk plays.

Recently the Yiddish theatre has been the object of considerable study, translation and revival; yet the world of Yiddish vaudeville remains virtually untouched. This is odd, considering that what we would now call vaudeville skits and playlets were among the very first products of the Yiddish stage (1870s), while similar material is still being presented to Yiddish-speaking audiences today. It is almost a truism to state that the rise of the Jewish-American comedian in the 1950s and 1960s was rooted in the low humor of the Borscht belt, but few have shown any interest in tracing the genealogy further back. One of the reasons for this neglect has been the scorn with which Jewish theatre critics, historians and activists view all ethnic entertainment not directed towards creating an “art” theatre. An even more important impediment is the almost total lack of surviving printed or manuscript versions of early Yiddish vaudeville.

Habimah, Israel's National Theatre, was born in the midst of the great upheaval of the Russian Revolution. In 1917, under the inspiring leadership of Nachum Zemach, the first group of 12 actors began training for the attainment of their goal—the establishment of a professional repertory theatre group to perform in Hebrew. They formed their theatre as a collective officially called “The Mutual Society, Ltd.” in which all had equal privileges and obligations. It was their hope that this dramatic group would be part of the process of national rebirth in Palestine.

From 1918 until 1924, at a time when Hebrew was considered a “counter revolutionary” language and Zionists were being arrested by the hundreds, Habimah's repertoire consisted of plays dealing with Jewish subjects, giving dramatic expression to the traditions and aspirations that nourished the Russian Zionist movement.

After The Dybbuk, The Golem was Habima's most acclaimed production. It opened on March 15, 1925, when Habima was still a studio of the Moscow Art Theatre, and since then it has run for 340 performances on three continents. In 1926, the company toured Europe and the United States, performing The Golem with two other plays. When the company visited Palestine in 1928, the play was revived, and later, in 1948, it was staged in America again. In New York, it was chosen—on the basis of box office demand—as an extra bill for the final week of Habima's season at the Broadway Theatre. In 1954, The Golem represented Israel in the First International Theatre Festival in Paris.

The production excelled in its acting, being a perfect example of the unique expressionistic style that made the Habima players so famous in The Dybbuk.

A Bike for a Year and Bars, both recent productions by the young actors of the Haifa Theatre Project Group, raised a two fold debate with both the public and theatre critics. One issue involved the artistic qualities of the shows as they reached the stage; the other concerned the social settings against which they were produced—for both productions were the results of special experiments in theatrical activity.

The initiator of the Haifa Theatre Project Group was Nola Chilton, a newcomer to Israel from the United States. A former Lee Strasberg student and now a member of a kibbutz, she is a resident director with the Haifa Municipal Theatre. Her most successful work there was based on a collectively compiled social research which evolved, over a prolonged period of study and experiment, into a stage-documentary.

The Khan Theatre Company was formed in 1972 in Jerusalem by Michael Alfreds, an English Jewish theatre director and teacher. Alfreds has worked in Israel since 1968 staging several successful plays such as The Mandrake by Machiavelli and The Donkeys by Plautus in the Haifa Municipal Theatre. Despite his success he still had difficulty working in the more well established theatres. Therefore, he accepted an invitation from the Jerusalem Municipality and formed a group of six young actors who were tired of seeking a comfortable milieu. They moved to Jerusalem and found their home in a renovated ruined Turkish inn—a 750-year-old khan. With government and municipal aid they formed the Khan Theatre Company to be the only repertory theatre in Jerusalem.

During the mid-1970s the impetus for founding a Jewish Theatre Association stemmed from the energy and commitment of two individuals. Although living over a thousand miles apart and of different professional backgrounds, Norman Fedder and Steve Reisner each simultaneously began exploring his Jewish heritage through theatre. Increasingly fascinated and moved by these experiences, each felt the need to form a theatre organization specifically devoted to the Jewish experience.

In 1972, Norman Fedder, the head of the Playwrights Workshop at Kansas State University, directed a student's play based on the life of Jeremiah. As Fedder recalls, the discussion with the audience which followed “was one of the most exciting experiences I ever had in the theatre.” As a result of this performance, Fedder, a dramatist with many community productions to his credit, was commissioned to write and direct other works with religious themes for several churches and synagogues.