The Eternal Light

Religious Drama (1944)

Top-name actors star in this religious-oriented program, including Jeff Chandler, Edward G. Robinson, Robert Preston, and Mel Ferrer. Eternal Light featured dramatizations of the religious texts, literature, history and many other sources.

For most of their history, the Jews have not only been a minority but a persecuted one at that. According to the Book of Genesis, Abraham entered a Covenant with the One True God who promises that Abraham's children shall inherit the land of Israel. Three major religions trace their origins to Father Abraham, Christianity and Islam are the largest religions in the world with 2.4 and 1.8 billion followers, while Judaism is the world's tenth-largest religion with 14.5 million followers.

Although they see themselves as "God's Chosen People", the Jews have had a tough time of it. The early history of the Jews is taught in Sunday School because the Christian Savior, Jesus of Nazareth, grew up as a good Jewish boy. Somehow, over the years, Christian doctrine developed which blamed the entirety of the Jewish people for the killing of Jesus. Never mind that the Crucifixion and the Passion of Jesus is the whole basis for Christianity, anti-Semitism had become institutionalized in western Society by the Middle Ages.

Somehow, the Jews were even made scapegoats for the Black Death which decimated the European population. The lessons learned as part of the Jewish Diaspora taught the Jews to be a thrifty people, and many of the great financiers and bankers of the Renaissance were Jews. Although Western Society ultimately benefited from this economic boost, the Jews as a people came to be seen as holding an unjust amount of power.

The supposed influence of "Jewish Bankers" was Hitler's excuse to launch the Nazi Holocaust, the most definite and deadly example of Jewish Persecution. The atrocities of the Holocaust were not widely known in America when New York's Jewish Theological Seminary began broadcasting The Eternal Light as part of NBC's Sunday religious programming on October 10, 1944.

Edward G. Robinson To the JTS's credit, The Eternal Light focused more on the accomplishments of Jews rather than their persecution. For a relative minority, there were plenty of accomplishments to profile by Jews in both the Old and New Worlds. A Je spoke out against the Slave Trade in Colonial times. The Sheriff of London, later Lord Mayor and Member of Parliament David Salomons was a Jew. Solomon Schecter lectured at Cambridge University and later became a founder of the JTS in New York. One of Louis Pasteur's most important assistants, Waldemar Haffkine, was a Jew. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses", the poem inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty was written by a Jewess. Jews have served honorably in all of America's Wars, and the show profiles many soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice.

In the 1952 season, The Eternal Light joined Frontiers of Faith and The Catholic Hour on NBC-TV's Sunday lineup.

In every Synagogue, an oil lamp is placed before the ark and kept burning at all times as prescribed in the Book of Exodus (which is read in the introduction of each Eternal Light episode). The Eternal Light is also a reference to the Hanukkah story when the Maccabees reclaimed the Temple in Jerusalem. The lamp was relit, although there was only enough oil for one day, however, the flame remained burning for eight days until the olive oil could be replenished.

This Sunday program is created in part by the Jewish Theological Seminary and dramatizes ancient stories. Written by Morton Wishengrad, Virginia Mazer, Joe Mindel among others, brotherly love is a common theme in these well-researched and richly told stories.

For more Yiddish programs, see also: The Goldbergs, The Golden Door, The People Take the Lead, Mama Bloom's Brood.