Never mind the close contest or the 24-21 final score; the real excitement this Super Bowl Sunday came — as usual — not from what happened on the playing field, but from what came onscreen when the game clock was still. The Super Bowl commercial remains one of our best gauges of the Zeitgeist, our roadmap to the national psyche (and at $2.4 million for 30 seconds, it’d better be good for something). But who could have guessed that this year’s map would lead, of all places, to Anatevka?

In a commercial co-sponsored by Pepsi and iTunes, the platinum-tressed pop starlet Gwen Stefani took a page out of Tevye’s playbook and sang of what she would do if she were a “Rich Girl.” In the song, originally a track from Stefani’s album, “Love, Angel, Music, Baby,” the former No Doubt front woman sings, “No man could test me, impress me, my cash flow would never ever end/Cause I’d have all the money in the world, if I was a wealthy girl,” over a hip-hop melody riffing on the score from “Fiddler on the Roof.” Though the spirit of yearning that informed the original doesn’t quite carry over into its 21st-century counterpart, there’s no denying that the tune remains catchy. It was tough to walk through the Forward’s hallways this week without hearing someone scatting “Yadda dadda dadda dadda dum.”

This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.

We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.

This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.

With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.

The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.

Don't just read the Forward - invest in it. Make a gift today.

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Support Our Work