Transcript
Commercial Announcer (0:00)
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Isaac Hart (0:29)
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, command the children of Israel that they bring unto thee pure oil olives beaten for the light to cause the lamps to burn continually in the tabernacle of the congregation. And it shall be a statute forever in your generation.
Narrator / NBC Announcer (0:54)
The Eternal Light. The National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated independent stations present the Eternal Light, a new series of programs offered as a public service.
Narrator / Historical Commentator (1:14)
It has been prepared under the auspices.
Narrator / NBC Announcer (1:16)
Of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Chapter one is entitled A Rhode Island Refuge. Following the dramatic portion of the program, we will hear a brief Message by the Honorable Edgar J. Nathan Jr.
Mordecai (Narrator / Main Character) (1:46)
They call it the old Jewish Cemetery of Newport from Narragansett Bay. The land breeze rustles in the trees, and the Rhode island sun is clean and friendly on our graves they sleep so still beside me. Once, so long ago, they fled from Spain and Portugal, fled before the Inquisition, and they wandered over the earth again. And here in Rhode island they found refuge. And now they sleep, a final refuge, the Last Exodus the headstones mellow in the rain. Lopez, Alvarez, Levi, Seychas, Turo but over my grave there is no tablet, only a nameless stone. The color of earth it does not matter. The grass is my comfort, and it is warm and green and living. And yet once I had a name, and also a history. My name was Mordecai, a good name, and Benjamin was my father, a good man. And in the year 1760, when I was a boy, my father read to.
Benjamin (Mordecai's Father) (2:54)
Me from the it hath been told thee what is good, and what the Lord doth require of thee, only to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.
Mordecai (Narrator / Main Character) (3:08)
We walked gladly with God, and we sang his praises in the New Synagogue on Griffin Street. And why not? For in Rhode island there was reverence for God and reverence also for me, which is a fine thing. It was not so in the other colonies, where Puritan persecuted Quaker and Anglican, opposed the Catholic, and both opposed the Jew. My father told me this and also how 23 Jews came to New Amsterdam, and how Peter Stuyvesant nearly turned them away. And he told me also how others came to Rhode island, and what Roger Williams said.