Saturday, July 03, 2004

Brando's Role in Israel's Birth

According to the Wyman Institue:

"In the summer of 1946, barely a year after the liberation of the Nazi death camps, 22 year-old Brando co-starred in 'A Flag Is Born,' an explosive play authored by Ben Hecht, the famed Hollywood screenwriter and Jewish activist. Set in a cemetery in postwar Europe, 'Flag' focuses on two elderly Holocaust survivors, Tevya (Paul Muni) and Zelda (Celia Adler), who encounter Brando's character, a distraught young Treblinka survivor named David who is on his way to British-ruled Palestine. Through the conversations between Tevya and David, Hecht articulates the Jewish right to the Holy Land and the need for a Jewish state. "