A question of identity: in the late 1940s and early '50s, a proud new generation of singers demonstrated the contribution of Jewish people to the American way of life.

Imagine opening the program of a Metropolitan Opera Rigoletto in the early 1950s and seeing Moishe Millstein as the hunchback, Roberta Peterman as his daughter, and Pinky Perelmuth as the Duke. Robert Merrill, Roberta Peters and Jan Peerce sang those roles, of course, but under their stage names. Now, granted, changing names in the first half of the twentieth century was not unusual among non-Jewish performers; long before he became general manager of the Metropolitan, the young tenor Edward Johnson christened himself Edoardo di Giovanni. Jews, however, purportedly had more compelling reasons to "pass." Jack Warner explained it best: "Look, kid," the movie mogul told ...