To life—and to cultural appropriation
I’m in New York for Christmas, and the other evening I went to see a production of “Fiddler on the Roof”—in Yiddish.
No, I don’t speak Yiddish, except for the usual 100 words of insult that have somehow crept into the English vernacular. And I’ve seen “Fiddler” many times, including the original with Zero Mostel long ago.
But, as this review (and all the others the production has received) indicates, you don’t have to know Yiddish or be Jewish to appreciate this remarkable production:
If you know Yiddish, it is, without question, a must-see. And if you have any hesitation about attending a three-hour show in a language you don’t speak, let me assuage your concerns immediately. You don’t have to be of any particular linguistic base, ethnicity, or religious affiliation to comprehend the beauty and significance of this work or to be touched by the characters and their story; you just have to be human. So, whatever your background, do yourself a favor and go (I’m of Scottish and Dutch Protestant descent, and I was thoroughly enthralled, impressed, and delighted with this rendition of one of my all-time favorites)!…
From the ensemble’s exuberant folk dances and solemn ceremonies that punctuate the story to the revealing conversations and unforgettable songs that strike a balance between humor and pathos (“the happiness and tears” of “Sunrise, Sunset”) – all delivered in the genuine style and actual language (including some bits of Russian dancing and dialogue) that the characters would have used – everything is this production bespeaks accuracy and authenticity. The intimate space of the theater and the earthy artistic design also serve to reinforce the immediacy and sincerity of the narrative…
The production provides written translation on each side of the stage, much like with an opera, and although that makes for certain problems with attention because the viewer must read the titles and watch the action almost simultaneously, the rewards are great.
I noticed that the jokes fell a bit flatter than they do in English, probably because of the time lag. But that was more than made up in the greater depth of feeling and seriousness conveyed by the unfunny parts of the play, which were emphasized and deepened in this particular production. Was it the acting that made the difference? Or did the fact that the performance was in another tongue—a slightly familiar one, but still different—make it seem more like an opera than a musical comedy? Was it all of the above?
Whatever the reasons, after a few moments there was an uncanny impression that we were watching the original inhabitants of the original shtetl, rather than actors on a New York stage. Eerie.
The 1964 musical “Fiddler on the Roof” was originally based on Sholem Aleichem’s (Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich, raised in a shtetl) stories of shtetl life, published in Yiddish. The English-language Broadway musical changed those stories somewhat for the American audience (and later, the world, because “Fiddler” has gone all around the world), and the English was translated into many many other languages. But the only time it had been performed in Yiddish previously—the language of Sholem Aleichem’s stories and the language the protagonists would have actually spoken in real life—was in an Israeli production in 1965.
Until now. The New York version I saw uses that same 1965 translation, which incorporates more of Aleichem’s original phrases into the lyrics:
Neither the show’s director, Joel Grey, nor all but three of its 26-member cast knew much Yiddish when they started. The scripts are in English, the dialogue and song lyrics spelled out phonetically…
“We worked first in English,” Grey tells The Post. “And if that went well, we’d add the Yiddish.” He says that both he and the cast received daily training from the dialect experts at the museum.
They do an extraordinary job.
And as far as “around the world to great acclaim” goes, I think the video I’m about to post here explains itself. It’s not in English or Yiddish; it’s the song from Fiddler called “To Life,” performed by a Japanese company in Japanese. The musical was hugely popular in Japan when it went there:
As Jeremy Dauber notes in his book The Worlds of Sholem Aleichem, Fiddler eventually became “a free-floating symbol, an Everylens for talking about universal challenges to tradition.” With that univeralism in mind, Fiddler has played everywhere, from Moscow to Warsaw to Budapest. But the story would seem more logically connected to those places, which have a historical Jewish connection—even for non-Jewish residents—that Japan lacks. And yet, as Barbara Isenberg writes in her book Tradition!: The Highly Improbable, Ultimately Triumphant Broadway-to-Hollywood Story of Fiddler on the Roof, the World’s Most Beloved Musical: “As Fiddler on the Roof traveled the world, few countries were so welcoming as Japan.”…
The show is about tradition, father-daughter(s) relationships,” Koji Aoshika, vice president of MTI Asia, which licenses the show, told me by email. “Japan was the same. You had to follow what the father said—arranged marriage, for instance. So, the story of a Jewish father losing power in the family life and girls starting to make their own decisions resonates…
So maybe Fiddler resonates in Tokyo not only because it’s a family drama about fathers and daughters, or a universal tale about modernity, but because Japanese history does, in fact, include a chapter about dislocation from a sepia-toned “old world” and an uncertain journey to a “new world” where the traditional rules no longer applied. Tevye and his daughters had to leave Anatevka and even move across an ocean to find their new world. The Japanese stayed put, but the new world came to them just as surely, with the same uncertain mix of hope and fear.
On watching this video, it also strikes me that the actors are having themselves a ball, and that includes the dancers who seem to have the flavor of the movements just right:
[NOTE: The Yiddish version is playing here until December 30, and is then moving to this theater.]
Speaking of cultural appropriation, or cultural dissemination, what about a posting on Flora’s Lebkuchen? It may be new to some readers. (I add nutmeg and coriander to the recipe. )
Gringo:
Good idea. I’ll do it tomorrow or Monday.
I think Fiddler is truly great.
Not only the universal “tradition” for social connection AND social conformity vs individual freedom, but also great, moving music plus the “joy of folk dance”.
I actually took a couple of Folk Dance courses (cute girls! not so many guys!) and quite liked the dancing and the joining of dancing.
Better than Macarena, but it and various popular group dances (“do the Hustle”) show the primal desire for joining together. Often in a circle — Neo, you had a great post on Cirlce Dancing, from another angle (teacher guide/ dictator).
It also shows the Jewish culture focus on education, including education of the women.
It also shows why some 97% or so male Jews (as of 1980 or so?) have the same Y chromosome as “Abraham” — very very strong “marry a Jew” to remain part of the Jewish community.
Seldom talked about by admirers of Jews is this discrimination reality — remember how you could tell a racist? “I have black friends, but I wouldn’t want my daughter to marry one of them”. Jews, unlike the other tribes mentioned in the Bible from 2000 years ago, have successfully remained “Jews” by refusing to intermarry.
Funny sad how Dem liberals are now becoming racist/ tribalist about Republicans, just like prior discrimination “… wouldn’t want my child to marry one of them” as well as, or even stronger “I wouldn’t consider dating one of them”.
I wrote a paper comparing the various versions of “Fiddler”/”Tevye der Milkhiger.” The original Shalom Alecheim story is very different from the Musical. Tevye is much smarter, less a fool. And there’s a bleaker outlook. It was fascinating to watch the Israeli film (the family makes Aliyah instead of coming to America) and the Yiddish film. (not surprisingly, closer to the SA stories.)
Longtime fan of the show, although I’ve never seen it in Yiddish (oy, veh!)
Saw an excellent production in the cellar of a Waldorf school in Denver done by 6th-8th graders. Yeah, I was biased, but the kids did a good job, and their Tevye was a knock-out — even at that age he could sing and act like a pro.
Tom Grey:
Actually, Jews have intermarried a great deal. However, when they intermarried they have often stopped identifying as Jews.
The other alternative is conversion to Judaism for the non-Jewish spouse, which often happens as well. In fact, the story of Ruth is essentially a story about conversion. Please see this.
I’d have to visit NYC, something I’m really strongly against…
*sigh*
Neither the show’s director, Joel Grey
I’m assuming this is the Joel Grey who was emcee of the nightclub in Cabaret.
Great actor, I’d like to see this just because he seems remarkably talented.
Another surprising role of his is in the action spy-spoof “Remo Williams”, with Fred Ward, Wilford Brimley, and a (pre-Voyager) Kate Mulgrew.
It’s a silly tongue-in-cheek movie, never taking itself too seriously, and well worth the effort to find it if you’re in the mood for such. A shame it was not a bigger success at the theaters…
P.S., if interested, see it without looking up his role. You will be all the more amazed afterwards, if you do.
Grey is also notable for his daughter, Jennifer Grey, who was well onto the way to getting a name for herself (Ferris Bueller, Dirty Dancing) who then managed to torpedo her own career by getting a nose job. It wasn’t a huge change, but it was enough that casting directors refused to believe she was who she said she was. She even poked fun at herself by playing herself in the two-season odd comedy series, “It’s Like, You Know…” in 1999.
And although they might not have a Jewish community, the Japanese can “see Russia from their house” so to speak.
Although the musical shouts its support for “tradition”, it is actually a story about the importance of abandoning tradition. One by one, Tevye chooses to give up a tradition, and in each case this is viewed as a good thing. At the end, there is one last tradition he refuses to give up — opposing inter-marriage — and this is portrayed as a tragedy, as bad as the destruction of the village by the Tsar.
Neo, I was lucky enough to be living near Chicago when Mostel and “Fiddler” toured as part of the bicentennial celebration (then the longest running Broadway musical). For some reason that I no longer remember, I arrived late to the production, but thankfully got to my seat just moments before “If I Were a Rich Man.”
The production was staged in an auditorium that was suited more for parking 747’s than for staging a musical, and during the first act a bird found its way into the building, frantically flying from end to end in search of a way back out. Zero didn’t waste the opportunity. As he and Yenta tried to untangle themselves from the bedsheets following the ‘visit’ by Fruma-Sarah, he looked around and gasped out, “Where’s the bird?”
LTEC — that’s the thing I don’t like about the musical: it celebrates assimilation. That’s NOT the lesson of the original SA stories. Read Hillel Halkin translation. He does a wonderful job of giving you the essence of the original.
After reading the Post article again, I find it a little odd: Yiddish stories wee adapted into a musical in English in the 1960’s and then translated into Yiddish. Is Tevye more like the musical Tevye or more like SA’s Tevye? How much did the Folksbiene work with the original Yiddish text in translation the musical into Yiddish?
LTEC:
I very much disagree.
It is portrayed as what happened. It is not portrayed as good or bad. The ambiguity of whether it’s good or bad is very clear in the play, IMHO, and I’ve seen it many times. Everything else is the viewpoint the audience brings to it.
I actually took a couple of Folk Dance courses (cute girls! not so many guys!) and quite liked the dancing and the joining of dancing.
Tom Grey: A cute hippie girl from a philosophy class pulled me into an Israeli folk dance circle one evening on the courtyard. I wasn’t any sort of dancer, much less a Jew, but somehow I was enchanted. It was a peak experience. I came back for more and I learned those dances.
I still get the chills when I hear “Hineh Ma Tov,” “Mayim,” “Im Haschahar” and “Dodi Li,” especially the Geula Gill versions.
If I am ever married, I will dance “Dodi Li” with my beloved.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1woMefTBoJU
Neo, see this NYT from awhile ago:
https://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/09/science/y-chromosome-bears-witness-to-story-of-the-jewish-diaspora.html
Despite the Ashkenazi Jews’ long residence in Europe, their Y signature has remained distinct from that of non-Jewish Europeans.
On the assumption that there have been 80 generations since the founding of the Ashkenazi population, Dr. Hammer and colleagues calculate that the rate of genetic admixture with Europeans has been less than half a percent per generation.
I’d say this is very very low intermarriage. Compare with racist Han Chinese:
https://www.scmp.com/article/1811159/bride-and-prejudice-rare-uygur-han-marriages-reflect-ethnic-tension-chinese-society
Uygurs had the lowest intermarriage rate of China’s 56 officially recognised ethnic groups at 1 per cent, according to Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences researcher Li Xiaoxia, who analysed the year 2000 census data. That fell to 0.6 percent for Uygur-Han unions.
My high school girl friend was Jewish from another school — we met in a scholarship competition and I looked her up afterwards (months later we found out: she took second, I took third, of about 30 top HS students in LA).
I think she did marry a non-Jewish guy in the 80s.
As you say, when the Jews marry outside, they often stop practicing as Jews — tho the Fiddler disowns his daughter, so that’s a big encouragement to stop “being a Jew”.
My Slovak wife (of 24 years!) tells how there were things I did that, because I was American, she forgave me. Later, with “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”, she found out they were “male things” more than “American things”. I think “inter-marriage” is often good about accepting normal differences as somehow more special.
I will never be a Slovak. Everybody in the world could be, in theory, an American. I like the American assimilation. But I also like Slovak “national pride”.
Fiddler’s ending is great partly because it shows good and bad aspects of the assimilation question.
Thanks Huxley; your link was not available for me (in Slovakia; often happens), but I looked up and watched Dodi Li. Very nice.
I took my fiancé to some ball room dance courses, so (now married) we do nice looking turns on the waltz and the disco – pop dancing. Slovakia has a “ball season”, with formal dress (tuxedos & gowns; lovely!) which my wife and I love to go to, each year. While in theory I can still wear my wedding Tux, I got a new one last year which is much more comfy.
“Country Roads” is often one of the big hits at the Slovak dances, and large groups of people … dance in circles! For some songs, like Country Roads, holding hands and moving in towards the center and then out in a pleasing but non-choreographed way; very fun. Often two or three big or medium sized circles of dancers.
Neo’s love of dance is another reason I’m so often happy here.
Tom Grey: And thanks for taking the trouble to look up “Dodi Li,” after the link failed!
For some songs, like Country Roads, holding hands and moving in towards the center and then out in a pleasing but non-choreographed way; very fun.
Boy, that’s “Mayim” exactly. The song is about the discovery of water. The dance is a circle which starts expanded and crouched, then rushes to the center with a joyous upward explosion like a fountain.
As I understand it, Israeli folk dances don’t go back to antiquity but were created in the kibbutzim for fun and to foster group unity. Thus, they were usually circles.
However, “Dodi Li” was a couple dance and the only folk dance I know in which the dance steps varied from verse to verse.
Here’s an English translation of “Dodi Li.”
I was once told it was from the Old Testament “Song of Songs.” It’s not, so far as I can tell, but it captures the deep sensuous love.
________________________________
MY BELOVED IS MINE
My beloved is mine and I am his,
The shepherd [grazing his flock] among the lilies.
Who is this, rising up from the desert
Who is she, rising up?
Perfumed with myrrh and frankincense
Myrrh and frankincense.
My beloved is mine and I am his,
The shepherd [grazing his flock] among the lilies.
You have captured my heart, my sister, my bride.
You have captured my heart, my bride.
My beloved is mine and I am his,
The shepherd [grazing his flock] among the lilies..
Awaken, north wind, and come, south wind.
My beloved is mine and I am his,
The shepherd [grazing his flock] among the lilies.
http://www.hebrewsongs.com/song-dodili.htm
The musical: Chava marries the Russian. They’re in love, and in solidarity with the her family they’re going to go to America because they can’t stand by while these things happen. Blah, blah, blah. There is the implication that Tevye — who had disowned her — now forgives her.
The Yiddish Film — Chava marries the Russian. They live with his family. They treat her like garbage. He joins in in treating her like garbage. Eventually, she goes back to her family because it is clear that the Russians will never see her as anything but garbage.
neo: I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on the kibbutz movement. It was perhaps the most successful socialist experiment on record, though hardly perfect.
Back in the 70s young Americans could go to Israel to live and work on a kibbutz. I knew a few who did and were happy with the experience.
OTOH an Israeli programmer I worked with, shrugged and said everyone knows that people who grow up on a kibbutz are crazy. Our manager was from a kibbutz and she was kinda crazy.
Huxley –Dodi Li is a literal extraction of lines from the Song of Songs. The Rabbis debated long and hard about whether this sensual, erotic love song (or collection of songs) should be included in the Bible. Finally, they ruled that it was really a metaphor for God’s love for Israel, so they included it.
Richard Saunders: It sure captures the spirit of the “Song of Songs.” But at least from English translations of the Bible I can’t find the same or similar lines in the English translation of “Dodi Li.”
I would love to learn otherwise.
There is “If you do not know this, O loveliest of women, follow the tracks of the flock, and take your kids to graze close by the shepherds’ tents,” in the first chapter which sounds close to the refrain of “Dodi Li.”
When I was in Catholic school we had to read “Songs” aloud, a verse at a time per student. We had hit puberty and we’re all squirming crazy at lines like:
Your two breasts are two fawns, twins of a gazelle, that feed among the lilies.
Meanwhile the nun is claiming with a stern straight face that the book is about God’s love for his Church.
Tom: funny to hear that Country Roads is such a hit in Slovakia.
We were in Germany during Oktoberfest last year, and watching the entertainer in a big tent full of picnic tables laden with bier and wurst; people would occasionally dance in the aisles, mostly folk dances to old songs I kinda sorta knew.
The he started singing “Country Roads” (in English, with a great Deutsch accent), and the place went crazy-wild with dancing and singing along.
Whodathunkit?
Lee:
In the Yiddish version I reviewed here, Chava and Fyeda go to Warsaw, Poland. And Tevye doesn’t forgive her—he says with a sort of strangled voice something like “Go with God,” without ever even looking at her as she walks away.
Take a look at the English libretto of Fiddler (see this). Tevye disowns Chava, but before he and the rest of the family are about to leave at the end, Chava appears. He doesn’t look at her (starts at the end of p. 104), ties a rope around a trunk with his back to her, she says she and Fyedka are going to Cracow (Poland), and then Tevye prompts to Tzeitl (as he crosses upstage box, never looking at Chava), saying “God be with you” which Tzeitl then repeats to Chava. After Chava leaves the scene, he turns to look in the direction she went.
There is no implication that Tevye forgives her, except when he very indirectly says “God be with you.” He doesn’t even look at her. And neither she nor Fyedka go to America. That is a figment of your imagination. There is no indication they will ever see her again or communicate with her, although I suppose it is left open as a distant possibility.
I am using the libretto from the English language play. I don’t have access to the same scene in the movie, but I am almost sure it is basically the same.
Tom Grey:
Maybe you fail to understand my point. I’ll try to clarify it.
Many Jews intermarry, and have for a long long time. However, the vast majority of those who intermarry would have offspring who would stop identifying as Jews, either quickly or after a generation or two. Therefore their descendants would not appear in those genetic statistics.
Tom: funny to hear that Country Roads is such a hit in Slovakia.
AesopFan, Tom: I was sure surprised when I got to a hotel in Wicklow, Ireland and discovered their bar jukebox was mostly American C&W.
I mentioned it to my Irish friend and he laughed. He said that’s how it is everywhere outside the major cities.
As they say in Slovakia:
“Ain’t but two kinds ‘a music worth listenin’ to….”
My late good friend Nate Weiser married his Episcopalian wife Norah and had three kids and a few grandchildren.
Nate was the only practicing Jew in the crew.
The Nazis would have killed them all,
Huxley:
Here are identical or similar verses:
Dodi Li — Song of Songs
My beloved is mine and I am his, — 2:16
The shepherd [grazing his flock] among the lilies. — 1:7-8
Who is this, rising up from the desert
Who is she, rising up? — 8:5
Perfumed with myrrh and frankincense — 4:6
Myrrh and frankincense.
My beloved is mine and I am his,
The shepherd [grazing his flock] among the lilies.
You have captured my heart, my sister, my bride. — 4:10
You have captured my heart, my bride.
My beloved is mine and I am his,
The shepherd [grazing his flock] among the lilies..
Awaken, north wind, and come, south wind. — 4:16
My beloved is mine and I am his,
The shepherd [grazing his flock] among the lilies.
I was in a production outside Boston in 1972 and have tended to insert Tevye into every role since – good thing I no longer do theater much. I read the Sholem Aleichem (wonderful name!) stories the next year. When we had children, I found myself becoming more like Tevye. An adaptation of a line is even on my blog profile.
I come down between neo and LTEC on the good-bad assimilation question. It is foremost that Fiddler is a description of what did happen in that world and how people responded to that. It is portrayed as rather inevitable many traditions went away. It also portrays Tevye’s stance in a sympathetic light to an audience that might be dismissive. Explaining the ways of Tevye to Broadway, to paraphrase Milton. The last three songs, “Far from the home I love,” “Chavela,” and “Anatevka” certainly portray what will be lost, and how high the price is.
Yet right from the opening number there is an undercurrent of humor about these old ways that is not 100% respectful, and “Do You Love Me?” suggests that Tevye is correct to take on some new ways, even if on his own terms. Marriage for love is portrayed as good throughout the show. Interesting that it was not so in the Yiddish movie.
AVI:
In the version I reviewed here, the humor was downplayed and the depth and unseriousness was highlighted.
I also saw a number of people do it on Broadway, including Mostel. There were varying degrees of emphasis on the humor, with Mostel being the most clownish. I wasn’t especially keen on his version.
By the way, Judaism is keen on love. Marriages were traditionally arranged a great deal of the time, and they were not based on initial attraction/love, but it was considered that a couple could and would grown into love and that that was a good thing. That’s what that song is about, by the way.
Richard Saunders: Nice job! For me the lines about the north and south winds clinched it.
However, most of “Dodi Li” is rather generic. “My beloved is mine” is barely memorable. “The shepherd [grazing his flock] among the lilies” is in the vicinity of the English translations but doesn’t line up. I find no lilies anywhere.
“Song of Songs” contains much bold, unmistakable imagery, almost none of which made it into “Dodi Li.”
The poignancy of Tevye’s estrangement from Chava is much more understandable than the fissures opening between left and right in this era.
See KyndyllG’s comment here.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2018/12/22/swedens-two-worlds/#comment-2416704
So what’s a good starter “Fiddler” for those of us who know nothing beyond “If I were a rich man…”?
Rent the movie? Go to Broadway? Listen to the soundtrack? Make it to the Yiddish version?
huxley on December 24, 2018 at 1:37 am at 1:37 am said:
Tom: funny to hear that Country Roads is such a hit in Slovakia.
AesopFan, Tom: I was sure surprised when I got to a hotel in Wicklow, Ireland and discovered their bar jukebox was mostly American C&W.
I mentioned it to my Irish friend and he laughed. He said that’s how it is everywhere outside the major cities.
* * *
It’s kind of funny (this in juxtaposition to the downfall of Der Spiegel’s serial fabulist; Baron Munchhausen lives!) that Europeans love to hate Americans, but they play our music, watch our movies, and wear our clothes (not to mention using our technology).
But why C&W rather than R&R or whatever the current favorite is?
Maybe the deplorables in the other hemisphere are more like ours than either group is like the global elite.
Maybe the deplorables in the other hemisphere are more like ours than either group is like the global elite.
AesopFan: I suspect that’s the case. Anyway, it was a trip to see dear Patsy Cline on an Irish jukebox.
huxley:
The movie is easiest, but I don’t like it and don’t recommend it.
The theater is the best way to see it. If you can get to the Yiddish one I highly recommend it, but any good regional or college theater would work.