Fables of Assimilation

To American audiences, the first four acts of Leopoldstadt, until its dénouement on "erev Kristallnacht,” should be so familiar as to feel like watching a rerun of a favorite show—the consumption of stories about the Holocaust having become, during the 1990s, a new ritual of American Jewish life, a secular sort of Passover Haggadah. It shouldn’t be surprising that in the atmosphere of “revival,” déja vu, and celebratory post-COVID “return to normal” that pervades our gerontocratic cultural institutions, Leopoldstadt has become the Broadway hit of this season.