For the fourth consecutive year, Laemmle Theatres is hosting a Christmas Eve sing-along screening of “Fiddler on the Roof,” Norman Jewison’s film adaptation of the long-running Broadway musical.
Despite a long life of distinguished writing, it’s not without irony that Sholem Aleichem today is probably known to most people as the guy who wrote the story behind “Fiddler on the Roof.”
Arriving in London this past Friday, April 29, I was immediately enveloped in a carnival-crazed country, a nation-wide block party made up of the tiniest Brits to those who had been alive at the 1926 birth of the current monarch, Queen Elizabeth, a
\”Fiddler On the Roof\” opened on Broadway more than 40 years ago this month. The show, with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick and book by Joseph Stein, was instantly popular, won numerous Tony Awards and has been successfully revived numerous times, but for me and members of my high school production, it was our introduction to a world beyond our small Western town.
Actor and Yiddish-language true believer Theodore Bikel grew up in prewar Europe, with German as his first language and Yiddish a quick second, partly due to his father reading his family Sholom Aleichem stories every Tuesday night.
The famous musical, \”Fiddler on the Roof,\” which celebrates life and Jewish family tradition during turbulent times, is coming to town, and what better time than now?
Originally written by Shalom Aleichem and turned into a film by Joseph Stein and Norman Jewison in 1971, \”Fiddler\” has withstood the test of time. What happened in the Jewish ghetto of Anatevka, Russia, in 1904 is representative historically of the persecution Jews have faced, from the Nazis in World War II to the ascending tension in the Middle East between the Israelis and Palestinians today. The play is a celebration of togetherness and perseverance; fighting for Jewish pride and keeping the faith even when there is little left to believe in and no one else to turn to.
Since it opened at Broadway\’s Imperial Theater on Sept. 22, 1964, \”Fiddler on the Roof\” with the late Zero Mostel as Tevye, the milkman trying to preserve his family\’s traditions in the face of a changing world, is still part of the tapestry of Jewish and American culture.
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