This is the Forward’s coverage of Fiddler on the Roof, the seminal 1964 Broadway musical about a Russian man who attempts to maintain his Jewish way of life circa 1905. It is based on Yiddish stories by Sholem Aleichem,…
Fiddler on the Roof
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Culture How I Grew Up With ‘Fiddler On The Roof’
“They’re doing ‘Fiddler’ in Yiddish,” a friend recently told my husband and me. “You both speak it, right?” “Only what I picked up from my parents,” I said. “Household Yiddish,” Martin joked. “We know the words for complaining.” “There are subtitles,” she said, offering to get tickets for us to join her and her husband….
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Theater ‘Tevye Served Raw’ Captures Sholem Aleichem’s Genius In Two Languages
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Sholem Aleichem has been an unusually frequent topic of conversation in New York this summer, thanks to the critical and commercial success of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene’s Yiddish-language production of “Fiddler on the Roof.” As anyone who has read Sholem Aleichem’s Tevye stories is well aware,…
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The Schmooze You Haven’t Seen The Hora Till You’ve Seen It Done On Jet Packs
It’s been a long, hard, emotionally exhausting week, and we are sad to report that it is only Tuesday. A video of Orthodox men performing a synchronized jet pack dance is the only thing that can save us now. In the most audacious bit of Jewish filmmaking since Mel Brooks made “Blazing Saddles,” BarStool Sports…
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Culture All-Yiddish ‘Fiddler’ Captures How Jews Really Spoke To Each Other
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. As soon as the film version of “Fiddler on the Roof,” based on the stories of the classic Yiddish writer, Sholem Aleichem, came out in movie theaters in 1971, my family and I went to see it. I thought it was wonderful, especially the songs. I learned…
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Theater America’s First All-Yiddish ‘Fiddler’ Is A Perfect, Bittersweet Portrait Of Jewish Joy
I was sick for my latest birthday, sniffly and feverish, yet I somehow found the wherewithal to force my gathered friends to watch the scene from “Fiddler on the Roof” in which the furious ghost of Frume Sarah rises from the grave. You know the one. Tevye, trying to convince his wife Golde to approve…
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Culture A ‘Fiddler On The Roof’ In Yiddish — The Way It Ought To Be
Barely two years after Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” made its groundbreaking 1949 debut, a Yiddish production starring — and translated by — Joseph Buloff opened in Brooklyn, with Miller’s blessing. The title of a review by George Ross in Commentary described it as “‘Death of a Salesman’ in the Original,” and the witty…
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The Schmooze The 8 Best Jewish Weddings Ever Seen On Screen
8.’Family Guy’ insists that all Jews are cheap (thanks guys) but it’s still a nice wedding (even though the Nazis get involved.) 7.Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson know how to bring the ruach to a Jewish wedding. 6.Imagining a wedding in the Belorussian woods, surrounded by Jewish partisans. We’ve got more on the real Bielski…
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Culture 15 Can’t-Miss Summer Events Starting With Yiddish ‘Fiddler’
My best memories of summer are of the arts: Catching a B.B. King concert in a Denver August downpour; waiting in the humid heat for a free ticket to “My Fair Lady” at the Muny in St. Louis; spreading a jacket on the beach at Coney Island and watching the riveting and under-recognized “Crown Heights”…
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