It is quite impossible to select the largest theater in the United States, place the Star of David high in a beautiful stage heavens above all flags and other symbols, apostrophize it for a week with all sorts of wild prophecy and all sorts of silly defiance of the world, sing hymns to it and otherwise adore it, without arousing curiosity. Yet the Jewish theatrical managers, with no protest from the Anti-Defamation Committee, have done this on a greater or smaller scale in many cities. To say it is meaningless is to use words lightly. The “Kol Nidre” is a Jewish prayer, named from its opening words, “All vows,” (kol nidre). It is based on the declaration of the Talmud: “_He who wishes that his vows and oaths shall have no value, stand up at the beginning of the year and say: ‘All vows which I shall make during the year shall be of no value.’_” It would be pleasant to be able to declare that this is merely one of the curiosities of the darkness which covers the Talmud, but the fact is that “Kol Nidre” is not only an ancient curiosity; it is also a modern practice. In the volume of _revised_ “Festival Prayers,” published in 1919 by the Hebrew Publishing Company, New York, the prayer appears in its fullness: “_All vows, obligations, oaths or anathemas, pledges of all names, which we have vowed, sworn, devoted, or bound ourselves to, from this day of atonement, until the next day of atonement (whose arrival we hope for in happiness) we repent, aforehand, of them all, they shall all be deemed absolved, forgiven, annulled, void and made of no effect; they shall not be binding, nor have any power; the vows shall not be reckoned vows, the obligations shall not be obligatory, nor the oaths considered as oaths._” If this strange statement were something dug out of the misty past, it would scarcely merit serious attention, but as being part of a _revised_ Jewish prayer book printed in the United States in 1919, and as being one of the high points of the Jewish religious celebration of the New Year, it cannot be lightly dismissed after attention has once been called to it. Indeed, the Jews do not deny it. Early in the year, when a famous Jewish violinist landed in New York after a triumphant tour abroad, he was besieged by thousands of his East Side admirers, and was able to quiet their cries only when he took his violin and played the “Kol Nidre.” Then the people wept as exiles do at the sound of the songs of the homeland.