Men of Israel

My daughter is playing a shepherd in her nursery's nativity play. At school I was never picked for a nativity - however, I did have a brief role in one biblical production...

   ‘Now boys, who wants to be an Egyptian soldier?’ Mrs Bonn scanned the class looking for recruits.

   ‘Me, Miss!’

   A flurry of little hands, including my own quickly shot up.

   ‘Ok let’s see, two, four, six, you can all be soldiers; while the rest can play Israelite slaves.’

  I wasn’t one of the six and groaned inwardly. Why couldn’t I be a soldier? You’d get to make an ace cardboard sword to hit people, and a shield you could keep. Being a slave couldn’t be much of a role surely. Still - at least I was one of the good guys.

  That summer at primary school, two classes were to produce separate episodes of the Moses story. Mrs Bonn, our teacher, had decided to keep it simple and produce the ‘basket and bull rushes’ episode - a prelude to the later events. The main man was played by a rather tatty Tiny Tears doll and the roles of Pharaoh and the Hebrew ladies completed the cast.

  We managed some brief rehearsals, and soon it was time to perform our play in front of the whole school.

  Heave, heave, heave men of Israel!

  With some trepidation, I shuffled onto the stage with the other ‘slaves’, dragging a large, imaginary block of stone. Our costume consisted of black PE shorts, and one of the soldiers followed carrying a lash made from paper streamers stuck to a kitchen roll tube. We also had our own slave’s chorus to sing.

We slave all day in the burning sun


An Israelite’s work is never done


Heave, heave....

  Exit the slaves and enter the villainous Pharaoh, who uttered his infamous decree and despatched his dastardly soldiers to carry out his dirty work. In Monty Python fashion, the soldiers galloped onto the stage astride invisible horses, brandishing their swords menacingly as they searched out the infant Moses. However, the ever resourceful Hebrew ladies (girls do your stuff) were one step ahead, and hid our plastic friend in the safety of the tissue paper rushes. Our performance was finished, and the challenge was set for the other class to stage their play next week.

   Their production was a grand affair, and featured glamorous costumes plus a host of extras. Like a Hollywood epic, as opposed to our BBC style budget offering. Moses was played by the annoyingly good looking kid, always picked for the heroic biblical roles, and we cut straight to the action. Having obtained freedom via a variety of nasty plagues, Moses now led the Israelites to freedom. Whilst Pharaoh (played charmingly by a girl), screamed out ‘Catch those Hebrew slaves!’ and personally headed the mighty Egyptian army (all four of them) in hot pursuit.

  I watched and wondered how they would show the parting of the Red Sea; that would stump them I thought. However, this was the clever bit. As the Israelites reached the shore, Moses held his metre ruler (sorry, trusty staff) aloft and the waves duly parted. Four kids, hidden underneath two large blankets, (blue not red) scrambled in different directions to let them pass safely through. As the treacherous Egyptians tried to follow, they were engulfed in a tempest of blanket. For the final authentic touch you could see Pharaoh’s crown as it bobbed on the surface before disappearing.

  I resisted the urge to jump up and rescue the pretty Pharaoh, and applauded along with the rest of the school. A glance at the faces of my class mates was enough to realize that our modest production had been well and truly outclassed.