Herod: A Tragedy

Herod: A Tragedy appeared in 1884 from Henry Iliowizi (1850-1911), a Russian-born rabbi then serving a Minneapolis congregation; the five-act drama was issued locally by the Tribune Book Rooms. Its subject is Herod the Great, the king of Judea whose political cunning and family murders made him a natural figure for tragedy, and the play predates Stephen Phillips’s better-known 1900 verse drama of the same name by sixteen years. Iliowizi returned to biblical theatre repeatedly, following this work with Joseph in 1885 and Saul in 1894, part of a small body of American Jewish writing produced between pulpit duties. Surviving print copies are scarce, so the digitized text is now the practical way to read it. Free PDF download available on BDeBooks.