Editor’s Note: A version of this story first appeared in The Good, the Bad, and the Elegy, a newsletter from the Daily Yonder focused on the best, and worst, in rural media, entertainment, and culture. Every other Thursday, it features reviews, retrospectives, recommendations, and more. You can join the mailing list at the bottom of this article to receive future editions in your inbox.
Author’s Note: My family has moved every generation since my great grandparents left czarist Russia. This has led me to believe not in a single Jewish homeland, but in the concept of ‘doikayt,’ which scholar Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz defines as “the right to be, and to fight for justice, wherever we are.” As war rages in Israel and Palestine, “Fiddler on the Roof” and the history it represents demand that we have empathy for every person violently removed from their home. And though Tevye is known to frequently misquote the bible, he undoubtedly would have little trouble remembering this famous verse of the Talmud: “whoever destroys a life, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.”
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Every holiday season for my entire childhood, my family drove from Kentucky to New York City in an increasingly dented 1999 Toyota Sienna. Entertainment technology advanced through the decades—my sister and I toted along discmans, Tamagotchis, many models of iPods, and, eventually, iPhones—but our minivan only ever had a cassette player. And my parents, inexplicably, only ever used it to play two cassettes, both of which I will forever associate with the holidays.
The first was called “Songs that Won the War,” and featured WWII-themed hits from the 1940s (This is the reason I still know every word to songs like “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition”).
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*Spoilers ahead, but the movie has been out for 52 years, so don’t blame me.*
Traditions
Fiddler follows Tevye the milkman and his efforts to see his many daughters married in a rapidly changing world. Each daughter pushes the boundaries of his traditions further and further—the first marries for love, the second follows a communist to exile in Siberia, and the third breaks away from the family by marrying a Christian. The most jubilant scene in the movie—the wedding celebration of the first daughter—quickly turns to tragedy as it becomes the site of a pogrom, a violent anti-Jewish demonstration. By the end of the movie, the Jews of the small (and fictional) village of Anatevka have been forcibly ordered to evacuate with just three days’ notice. They carry what they can on their backs and leave the rest.
While as a rule there are very few things we Jews agree about (arguing is one of our most sacred cultural and religious practices), it is hard to overstate how important Fiddler is for generations of Jews. Centuries of constant, often forced, migration and the loss of elders has left many families, like mine, with only the loosest knowledge of our specific familial history.
Instead, we have “Fiddler on the Roof.” We don’t know exactly where our relatives came from, but it was likely a shtetl (small town) in the Jewish Pale of Settlement much like Anatevka, where Fiddler is set. In the saddest song of what is generally a very sad musical, the residents of Anatevka say goodbye to their village, noting “people who pass through Anatevka don’t even know they’ve been here.”
What do we leave? Nothing much. Only Anatevka.Anatevka, Anatevka. Underfed, overworked, Anatevka.Where else could Sabbath be so sweet?Anatevka, Anatevka. Intimate, obstinate, AnatevkaWhere I know everyone I meet.Soon I’ll be a stranger in a strange new placeSearching for an old familiar face from Anatevka.I belong in Anatevka, tumble-down, work-a-day, Anatevka.Dear little village, little town of mine.
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The families of the village disperse—some move within Europe, while others immigrate to the tenements of Chicago and New York. Though it is far from the main focus, this journey represents the real-life urbanization of many Ashkenazi Jewish families, like my father’s, who came from rural Eastern Europe before settling in cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
The name of the musical comes from the opening lines, where Tevye compares the Jews of Anatevka to a fiddler on the roof, “trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck.” He argues that the fiddler keeps his balance—and Jews maintain their communities—through traditions.
And though these traditions bend and change even within the timeframe of the (granted, three hour long) movie, they do not break. As Tevye and his family leave Anatevka, the eponymous fiddler follows behind them, representing the traditions that will follow them to New York.
For my family, watching and listening to Fiddler—while making latkes for Channukah, driving to see family, or even just settling on a crowd-pleaser after an intense debate over family movie night—has become one of our most important traditions.
Fiddler on the Roof is available to watch on a number of free, ad-supported streaming television (FAST) platforms and can also be rented or purchased digitally or on disc.
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