Under guidance! There is a guidance born in me that takes me where I am, and I do not fear! It is a guidance that lives to-day; it is not a guidance dug from the bones of a dead people of the dim past! I know. You are going to say that Solomon did business, that David did business. I don't care if they did! And you tell me that I skim the surface, that I miss the spirit of the Jewish faith; and I tell you that it is this spirit that my soul revolts against--the spirit that holds our people in chains--the chains of the Ghetto! (THE RABBI: Ghetto! There is no Ghetto! We do not live in Ghettos now, my boy! Preposterous!) And now you are skimming the surface, and you will not see the truth that underlies! You say there is no Ghetto! Could I ever play with any but another Jew when I was a child? Could I ever eat with a Christian? Was I ever taught by any but a Jew? No, you have taught me to despise the Christians! (THE RABBI: They persecuted us for ages; they have not taught us to admire them.) They have ceased to persecute us, they have taken down the stones of the Ghetto walls, but still we are taught to despise them; still we try to think ourselves the chosen people. We set ourselves as a race against them and the universal brotherhood of man. This is the proof of it: our women we marry, theirs we pay!

Rafael Monologue from The Ghetto: A Drama in Four Acts

Rehearse Rafael's monologue