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.

AesopFan: I suspect that’s the case. Anyway, it was a trip to see dear Patsy Cline on an Irish jukebox.

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.

Rent the movie? Go to Broadway? Listen to the soundtrack? Make it to the Yiddish version?

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.”

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.

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.

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.