Traditions: The Many Daughters of Zelophehad and Tevye the Milkman

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Rabbi Lance J. Sussman

Rabbi Lance J. Sussman

Parshat Matot-Masei

For people of my generation born in the 1950s, the defining Jewish historical event of our lifetime was the 1967 Six-Day War. Israel’s miraculous military victory defined our relationship with the Jewish state and intensified our pride in being Jewish.


However, the ’67 war did not define the content of our Jewishness. That took place three years earlier when the musical “Fiddler on the Roof” took the stage in 1964 and instantly became coterminous with “tradition.”

Ironically, it was the muddy roads of a Ukrainian shtetl, not the fields of the kibbutz, which resonated most deeply with our American Jewish souls. Most of us were third-generation Americans, descendants of Yiddish-speaking immigrants and just becoming aware of the terrible price the Holocaust took on the places of origin of our ancestors.

The transformational success of Fiddler was no accident. The Broadway hit was based on eight stories by Ukrainian Jewish writer Sholem Aleichem written between 1894 and 1914. The first stage adaptation appeared in 1919 just three years after the death of Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich, the birth name of Sholem Aleichem (a Yiddish/Hebrew greeting meaning “Peace to you!”).

The stories were subsequently reworked by a series of playwrights, novelists and movie directors to meet the needs of different generations of viewers and readers in Europe, the United States and Israel and around the world.

Each rendition of Aleichem’s stories was a little bit different, but none compared to the version principally created by writer Joseph Stein, lyricist Sheldon Harnick and musical composer Jerry Bock. The title of the musical “Fiddler on the Roof” was based on the art of the greatest 20th-century Jewish artist, Marc Chagall, who apparently did not like the play!
According to American film critic and independent scholar Jan Lisa Huttner in her 2014 book, “Tevye’s Daughters: No Laughing Matter,” the deep root of the Tevye stories is to be found in this week’s double Torah portion, Mattot-Masei, as well as in an earlier portion in Numbers, Pinchas.

It seems almost providential that just as two versions of the daughters of Zelophehad appear in the Torah, multiple versions of the Daughters of Tevye appeared in short stories, movies and plays.

Among other things, Huttner points out that Zelophehad had five daughters while Tevye had seven, but only five appeared in the musical movie version and, of them, only three, Tzeitel, Hodel and Chava, were developed as characters. In both the Torah and with Aleichem, the personal autonomy of the daughters is cast in tension with the principles of tradition with respect to marriage and the related themes of romantic love and family inheritance.

The changes in the different versions of “Fiddler” are staggering. In the original seventh story, Tevye goes to the land of Israel, not to America, a decision retained by the Broadway and Hollywood producers. Aleichem himself, although he died in New York, did not like America but for American Jewish audiences, New York and Chicago were the ordained destinations in Tevye’s mind.

Already sad enough, the American versions also eliminated the deaths of Golde, Tevye’s wife, and Motl, his son-in-law, in story No. 8. In the original Yiddish, there is no pogrom, an unimaginable missing ingredient for an American Jewish audience. Most interesting of all is that in the 1919 play version and the 1939 film version, Chava leaves her gentile husband, Fyedka, and returns to the family reflecting a different era in the modern history of mixed marriage.

In 1964, when American Jews were first confronting the existential realities of a growing rate of exogamy, a reluctant Tevye can barely mutter, “May God be with you!” It’s also interesting that the 1964 musical had Zero Mostel play the role of Tevye despite the fact he was blackmailed for “communist activity.” For his part, the American Perchik is more of an idealist than a hard-boiled Bolshevik.

Not surprisingly, the anti-Tevye, writer Philip Roth, called “Fiddler” “shtetl kitsch” and derided the humanity of the Russian constable in the story. One can only imagine how a contemporary Ukrainian version of “Fiddler” would depict a Russian security agent.
Interestingly, when the current Russo-Ukrainian War began in 2014, a Jewish displaced persons camp called Anatevka was set up near Kyiv. It’s also worth noting that a Yiddish production of Fiddler was staged in New York beginning in 2018 based on a 1965 Israeli Yiddish translation. The Israeli Hebrew version of “Fiddler” was called “Tevye and His Seven Daughters,” reflecting the difference in Israeli and American family demographics.

The daughters of Zelophehad and Tevye have proven to have true universal appeal. “Fiddler” has delighted audiences around the world and in all 50 states.

But deep down, embedded in the narrative and the dynamic interplay of tradition and contemporary culture, is an authentically Jewish story, rooted in Torah and alive with restorative powers which will help the whole world laugh and smile and challenge future Jewish audiences to figure out their place on the long journey from Sinai to the Pale of Settlement to Philadelphia and beyond.

Lance J. Sussman is rabbi emeritus of Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel and the immediate past chair of the board of governors of Gratz College. The Board of Rabbis of Greater Philadelphia is proud to provide diverse perspectives on Torah commentary for the Jewish Exponent. The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Board of Rabbis.

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