Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof (59 page)

I regret that some artists central to the productions here declined to be interviewed—among them Jerry Bock, Gino Conforti, Bernie Gersten, and Julia Migenes—but I respect their wishes.

And I especially regret that despite a couple of years of scheduling efforts, interviews could never be arranged with some artists—among them, Theodore Bikel and Pia Zadora—who generously agreed in principle to speak with me.

Of course there are many more who could not be located or who chose not to respond to queries that may have reached them. Regardless of their level of involvement with this project, I hope everyone finds events they were part of accurately represented.

INTRODUCTION: A LITTLE BIT OF THIS, A LITTLE BIT OF THAT

Glenn Beck
See “Courage, Tears and
Fiddler on the Roof
at Glenn Beck’s Israel Rally,” Jill Rayfield, Talking Points Memo, August 24, 2011,
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/courage-tears-and-fiddler-on-the-roof-at-glenn-becks-israel-rally.php
; and “Live Blog: Glenn Beck’s ‘Restoring Courage’ Rally in East Jerusalem,” Sara Miller and Morten Berthelsen,
Haaretz
,
http:///www.haaretz.com/news/national/live-blog-glenn-beck-s-restoring-courage-rally-in-east-jerusalem-1.380474
, published 16:46, August 24, 2011; last update, 20:36, August 24, 2011.

“worse than Robespierre”
Beck radio show, October 10, 2011; video embedded on Huffington Post, “Glenn Beck: Occupy Wall Street Protesters Will ‘Kill Everybody,’” Jack Mirkinson, October 10, 2011,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/10/glenn-beck-occupy-wall-street-kill-everybody_n_1004016.html
.

two hundred schools across the country put it on each year
listings of licensing agency, Music Theater International.

“Now, I know I haven’t been the best Jew”
“Homer’s Triple Bypass,” Season 4, Episode 11, of
The Simpsons
, first aired December 17, 1992.

Pinochet banned
Fiddler
“Chilean Leader Tells Jews Why ‘Fiddler’ Is Out,”
Jewish Week
(Washington, DC), September 19, 1974.

Chavez defunded the orchestra
Hausman (director of production) interview.

“What shall I write you about yesterday’s triumph?”
Sholem-Aleichem letter to his daughter, Tissi, April 14, 1905, Berkowitz,
Sholem-aleichem bukh
, 62.

CHAPTER 1: TEVYE’S LONG JOURNEY TO THE NEW YORK STAGE

Unless otherwise noted, translations from Yiddish are my own.

Sholem-Aleichem … thought about the New York theater
Berkowitz,
Sholem-aleykhem bukh
, 207; Waife-Goldberg,
My Father
, 211–13; Sholem-Aleichem letters to Fishberg, cited below.

“Just like it says in the Bible”
Sholem-Aleichem,
Tevye the Milkman
, 3.

“Have you heard any news about the cholera in Odessa”
ibid., 69.

“as a vulgar comedian who pandered”
Miron, “Darkside,” 42.

asked Fishberg to bring this surefire hit
Sholem-Aleichem letter to Fishberg, September 13, 1905, Berkowitz,
Sholem-aleykhem bukh
, 208.

“should have told you this before”
Sholem-Aleichem letter to Fishberg, October 8, 1905, ibid., 209.

“with trembling hands”
Sholem-Aleichem to Fishberg, October 24, 1905, ibid.

At first he took heart in seeing armed soldiers
ibid. Pogrom report also quoted, in English, in the
Aberdeen Daily News
, November 27, 1905.

“sit out these evil times”
Sholem-Aleichem letter to Fishberg, October 24, 1905, Berkowitz,
Sholem-aleykhem bukh
, 209.

“I send you the fifth act of
Stempenyu
”
Sholem-Aleichem letter to Fishberg, October 26, 1905, ibid.

In this fraught period
This phase of Sholem-Aleichem’s life and work is discussed in detail in Litvak, “Khave and her Sisters,” a significant influence on my reading.

“Don’t make a book out of this”
Sholem-Aleichem,
Tevye the Milkman
, 82.

“the king of the Yiddish actors”
Berkowitz,
Undzere
v2, 137.

“Reb Yankev Gordin, he who translates and improves Shakespeare”
Sholem-Aleichem letter to Berkowitz, Berkowitz,
Undzere
v2, 141.

He had despised
Der meturef
 
… bound all thirty copies of
David ben David
Berkowitz,
Undzere
v2, ch. 95, “David ben David,” 137ff.

Sholem-Aleichem … read his new play … Adler … “fidgeted and nodded his head”
Israel Cohen, “On the Horizon: Sholem Aleichem in Exile,”
Commentary
8 (1949): 584.

“nothing can dispel the despondency and the gnawing in the heart”
Sholem-Aleichem ship diary/letter to family, October 19, 1906, Berkowitz,
Sholem-aleykhem bukh,
81; quoted and trans. in Waife-Goldberg,
My Father
, 184.

“The occasion could not be more exultant” … “it seems a new era is dawning on our horizon, full of success, luck, and happiness”
Sholem-Aleichem letter to Tissi, October 21, 1906, Berkowitz,
Sholem-aleykhem bukh
, 82.

“make up for [Sholem-Aleichem’s] lack of ability as a dramatist”
“The Season of Yiddish Drama: Plays and Players,”
Menorah
, September 1905, 153.

fans packed all three tiers
“Aleichem Welcomed,”
New York Times
, November 1, 1906.

“The Jewish quarter might have shown some unity”
Chronicler
, November 2, 1906, quoted in YIVO, “Sholem Aleichem in America,” 11.

Educational Alliance … charter
quoted in Sachar,
A History
, 157.

“I am the American Sholem-Aleichem”
an oft-quoted and likely apocryphal remark, recounted, among other places, in Waife-Goldberg,
My Father
, 187.

“great literary personality”
cited in Waife-Goldberg,
My Father
, 187.

humiliated and angry … request the money
Berkowitz,
Undzere
v2, 164.

“with only a hard chill”
ibid., 169.

two years’ wages
Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor
, issue 71 (Government Printing Office, 1908), 35: Pressers averaged $0.21/hour, working a fifty-four-hour week, amounting to about $590 a year if the presser does not take a single day off.

“When girls objected”
Abe Cahan, “Introduction,” in Thomashefsky,
Mayn lebens geshikhte
, ii.

“like poor patches on a rich garment”
Berkowitz,
Undzere
v2, 187.

“The audiences seemed happy to me”
Sholem-Aleichem letter to his family, February 9, 1907, Berkowitz,
Sholem-aleykhem bukh
, 84.

ideological fault lines
Nina Warnke offers the full political analysis of Sholem-Aleichem’s reception in America in “Of Plays and Politics.”

“new page in Yiddish theater”
Sholem-Aleichem’s speech described in Berkowitz,
Undzere
v2, 188–89, and essentially reiterated in the
Tageblat
’s anonymous review of February 11, 1907, quoted in Schulman, “
Sholem-aleykhems stzenisher debyut
.”

“new winds blowing”
Sholem-Aleichem speech quoted in Schulman, “
Sholem-aleykhems stzenisher debyut
.”

didn’t hesitate to crank out some potboilers
See Joel Berkowitz, “Jacob Gordin, Man and Myth,”
Forward
, May 30, 2008.

“a new epoch”
Morgn zhurnal
; “no true Yiddish theater,”
Tageblat
, February 11, 1907; “This is simply scandalous,” “whenever a flash,”
Varhayt
; Entin in
Yidisher kempfer
—all quoted in Schulman, “
Sholem-aleykhems stzenisher debyut
.”

“brought to an end Sholem-Aleichem’s career as a playwright”
B. Goren,
Di geshikhte fun yidishn teatr
, 181.

“the figures”
Abe Cahan,
Forverts
, February 19, 1907, quoted in Schulman, “
Sholem-aleykhems stzenisher debyut
.”

“Once Sholem-Aleichem played a great role”
ibid.

“Do you think she complained? Do you think she cried even once?”
Sholem-Aleichem,
Tevye the Milkman
, 96.

the entire 1906–07 season bombed at the People’s and Kalish theaters
B. Goren, “
Der sakh hakol fun fergangenem yidishn teatr sezon
,” “
Der bankrut fun yidishn teatr
,”
Der amerikaner
, May 24 and 31, 1907. See also Thissen, “Reconsidering.”

“genuinely Jewish comedy”
Sholem-Aleichem letter to Jacob Adler, quoted in Berkowitz,
Undzere
v3, 91.

“Watch the impression”
ibid., 90.

“My good friend and great artist Adler!”
ibid.

Adler complained that the play piled up
ibid., 96.

the preferred amusement
On the decline of the theaters, see Thissen, “Reconsidering.”

mawkish musical melodramas
For discussion of the “
harts
,
neshome
,
pintele
” plays, see B. Goren,
Geshikhte
v2, 203–31; Thissen, “Reconsidering.”

they were pressing to have “Hebrew” removed
See Goldstein,
Price of Whiteness
, 102–3.

“great new continent that could melt up all race differences”
Zangwill,
Melting Pot
, 179.

unleashed a national debate
For discussion of the success and impact of
The Melting Pot
, see Edna Nahshon’s “Introduction” to her
Ghetto to Melting Pot.

sold his lease for the Grand Theater
Thissen, “Reconsidering,” 192.

“What’s the point of the whole circus”
Sholem-Aleichem,
Tevye the Milkman
, 99.

“where all the old Jews like you go to die”
ibid., 110.

“To tell you the truth, when I think the matter over”
ibid., 100.

a spate of Beilis plays
See Joel Berkowitz, “The ‘Mendel Beilis Epidemic’ on the Yiddish Stage,”
Jewish Social Studies
8:1 (Fall 2001): 199–225.

Sholem-Aleichem followed the Beilis case
Roskies makes this point in
Jewish Search for a Usable Past
, 11.

“a hysterical shaking”
Berkowitz,
Undzere
v5, 93.

In the last scene—the most touching
Sholem-Aleichem letter to Olga Rabinowitz, February 25, 1914, Berkowitz,
Sholem-aleykhem bukh
, 117.

“We ought to be counting our blessings”
Sholem-Aleichem,
Tevye the Milkman
, 126.

“the crown of my creation”
Sholem-Aleichem letter to David Pinski, February 16, 1914, Berkowitz,
Sholem-aleykhem bukh
, 250.

“the audience loves him all the more”
Sholem-Aleichem letter to Pinski, February 16, 1914, ibid., 251.

“Although a hard man to do business with”
Sholem-Aleichem letter to Pinski, February 16, 1914, ibid., 250.

“great artist and master of the Yiddish stage”
Sholem-Aleichem letter to Jacob Adler, January 20, 1914, ibid., 249.

the author never even sent the letter
So claims Berkowitz in the
Sholem-aleykhem bukh
, 249; and Zylbercweig in
Leksikon
v4, 3404 (dating it to 1913); Rosenfeld,
Bright Star
, claims otherwise: 321–22.

directors there no longer believed in the potential
Berkowitz,
Undzere
v5, 98.

Sholem-Aleichem burst out with a bitter laugh
ibid., 170.

Sholem-Aleichem felt more alienated than ever
ibid., 174.

“I hope to have it produced in the fall by Adler or Thomashefsky”
Sholem-Aleichem letter to Emma and Misha, July 7, 1915, Berkowitz,
Sholem-aleykhem bukh
, 125.

Kessler nodded off
Berkowitz,
Undzere
v5, 197.

in Europe things were even worse
Sholem-Aleichem letter to family, quoted in Berkowitz,
Undzere
v5, 210.

His funeral—including a stately procession
For discussion of the spectacle and politics of Sholem-Aleichem’s funeral that makes the case for the way it unified Jewish factions, see Kellman, “Sholem-Aleichem’s Funeral”; also A. Goren, “Sacred and Secular: The Place of Public Funerals in the Immigrant Life of American Jews,”
Jewish History
8:1–2 (1994): 269–305.

“a microcosm of the Jewish people”
Yehoash, eulogy for Sholem-Aleichem delivered at the Educational Alliance on May 15, 1916, and excerpted in
Groyser kundes,
May 19, 1916; quoted in YIVO, “Sholem-Aleichem in America,” 21.

“not a ‘folk writer,’ not even ‘
the
folk writer’
” Yosef Haim Brenner, “On Sholem Aleichem (The Writer and the Folk),” trans. David Roskies,
Prooftexts
6:1 (January 1996): 17.

Berkowitz added the village priest
Berkowitz,
Undzere
v5, 99; Weitzner,
Sholem-Aleichem in the Theater
, 80.

“What more can the stage say”
M. Grim quoted in Zylbercweig,
Yiddish Art Theater in America
, 148.