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June 19, 2019

In Yiddish, “Fiddler on the Roof” Sheds Its Mushy Universalism

This Tevye is no “sweetie-pie Jew.”

In a glowing review of the Yiddish-language production of the classic Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof, John Podhoretz finds in it the ultimate refutation of what he calls the “sweetie-pie Jew,” a figure who has long been a staple of American popular culture, and was created as an antidote to the Jew of anti-Semitic stereotype. Podhoretz traces this “cuddly and lovable creature who asks for so little” back to the radio comedy The Goldbergs, which premiered in 1929. While the original Fiddler on the Roof of 1964 effectively turned its protagonist Tevye—a character created by the Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem—into just such a Jew, the Yiddish version manages to reverse the transformation:

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