Gidi Dar, who directed the film, told JNS that it has taken on renewed significance in the aftermath of tension in Israel over both judicial reform prompted by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the terrorist attacks by Hamas on Oct. 7.

“An absolute turn—a complete change in all levels and layers of understanding of the situation,” Dar said. “Eventually, unity depends on us, and that if we are not able to work together, to compromise, we’re going to a bad place.”

“But we do have a lesson over here. We know what we should do. The question is: Can we do it?” Dar added. “Specifically, to work together. People in Israel, for example, understand that they have to work together in the current situation, which is very tense.”

‘From baseless hatred to baseless love’

The Hebrew film has won four Ophir Awards—the Jewish state’s equivalent of an Oscar—out of seven nominations. Naftali Bennett, then-Israeli prime minister, endorsed it, as did Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who has recommended that it become part of the country’s high school curriculum.

Dar penned the script, which is inspired by Talmudic accounts and the writings of Josephus, with Shuli Rand. The English re-release features the voice-over talent of the Oscar-nominated actor Elliott Gould (the only Jewish actor among the voice-over actors) as Rabban Yochanan Ben Zakkai.

The plot follows Ben Batich (voiced by Oscar Isaac), who turns from a dedicated student of his uncle, Zakkai, to zealotry. At 80, Zakkai is guided by strong faith, amid corruption surrounding the Temple and its agents, and the moral tugs-of-war of Judean Queen Berenice (Evangeline Lilly), great-granddaughter of King Herod, who largely oversees the Temple and Jerusalem.

Daphna Pollak, a local activist, together with Canadians for Israel and a consortium of partner organizations, brought the film to Toronto for an Aug. 11 screening, which drew about 280 people.

She had already seen it in Hebrew, and when she learned that the Lincoln Square Synagogue in New York was screening an English version on July 14, she knew she wanted to bring it to her city as well.

“It was the same perspective as seeing a Holocaust film,” Pollak told JNS. “But this time, the Jewish people brought the tragedy among themselves.”

“It just dovetails with what’s happening with Israeli politics and that makes it all the more painful at this time,” she added. “We can trace back the problem ever since biblical times when Joseph was sold to slavery by his brothers. When we treat each other with love and respect, and when we stand united, nothing can harm us.”

“But when we are divided and allow our negative feelings to dominate, our enemies take advantage of us, and we’re at their mercy,” Pollak added. “History has taught us that. It’s the classic message of Tisha B’Av. I hope that we will turn from baseless hatred to baseless love, and we will turn this chapter of our history from destruction to one of unity, heroism and victory.”

‘An unknown road’

Dar told World Mizrachi that he read a book about Josephus in 2013 that made him want to create a documentary about the destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem. Knowing the budget for such an endeavor would be prohibitive, he commissioned artists David Polonsky and Michael Faust (the two behind the Oscar-nominated 2008 animated war docu-drama “Waltz with Bashir”) to create the 1,500 paintings.

The artists were inspired by, among others, the Italian artist Caravaggio (1571-1610); the 20th-century British painter Francis Bacon; and Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863-1944). The two were also reportedly inspired by images on ancient pottery and by the examples of contemporary Israelis, including Rabbi Menachem Froman of Tekoa in the Gush Etzion region of Judea, who died in 2013. The artists modeled Ben Zakkai on the latter.

“I was on an unknown road, creating this film,” Dar told JNS. “Unknown in many ways—first of all, cinematically, this technique, but also in terms of dealing with this subject story.”

“Most of us don’t really know the story, including myself,” he acknowledged.

Dar told JNS that the voice actors aren’t merely doing voice-overs. “They are really great actors, and it took really great actors to do it stylistically well,” he said.

In an unreleased “behind the scenes” video that JNS viewed, Billy Zane, who voices Simeon Bar Giora, notes that “the delivery system was so unique and exciting.”

“You feel like you’re watching something that’s completely in motion,” Lilly added.

“This style of animation—I don’t think anyone’s done before,” she said in the video. “Even though it was a more restricted medium, I was amazed at how alive it became. Almost more alive than it would be if it were a moving picture where every detail was answered for me.”

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Adam Hummel, a lawyer in Toronto, told JNS that it was “remarkable and uplifting to see so many Jews come together” this year for the 5K walk (about 3 miles.)

“I was dumbstruck how many people were gathered and feeling the energy and community, especially when we have been struck by so much sorrow,” Hummel said.

Although it seemed in prior years that people attended out of inertia, this year was different, according to Hummel.

“It felt like people needed to be there,” he said. “Because of everything we have gone through as a community, and what Israelis went through, people needed to show up to stand with Israel.”

The event, a project of the UJA Federation of Toronto, moved from the heavily-Jewish neighborhood at the Bathurst Street corridor at Lawrence Avenue to the Federation’s Sherman Campus, which was rebuilt several years ago.

Guidy Mamann also told JNS that this year’s event felt different.

“I’ve been to many, many walks for Israel since I was a kid,” the Toronto lawyer said. “Normally, people go because they want to have fun and see old faces, but I think this year it was driven by a need to go.”

“There was a sense of needing to go to this walk-a-thon because of the trauma we’ve been through together,” he said. “We needed to feel each other and see each other in large numbers. I think the community really needed that.”

Brendan Shanahan, president of the Maple Leafs, the Toronto hockey team, and the singer Montana Tucker, who sang the Israeli national anthem, were among the celebrities present.

“We are thrilled by the overwhelming support for the walk this year from our community and our friends and neighbors across Greater Toronto,” stated Jeff Rosenthal, chair of the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto. “To see a record-breaking turnout this year speaks volumes about our community’s pride, resilience and determination to show our city who we are and what we stand for.”

Exceptions for Jews

Michael Kerzner, the solicitor general of Ontario, and Melissa Lantsman, deputy leader of the Conservative Party, attended the event. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Olivia Chow, Toronto’s first Chinese-Canadian mayor, reportedly were not present.

Chow, who had skipped what she called a “divisive” annual Israeli flag raising at City Hall the prior month, said in an interview with a popular Toronto radio station that she had a prior commitment and couldn’t attend Sunday’s event.

“She wasn’t missed,” said David Burstein, a Toronto dentist.

“It was one of the most outstanding communal Jewish experiences of my life, and I’ve lived in Toronto my entire life. The energy was fantastic,” Burstein told JNS. “The fact that they got the four hostages out the day before, really helped morale and added to the joy of the day.”

Kevin Vuong, a federal politician of Chinese descent, told JNS that he was disappointed that Chow skipped the pro-Israel event, which she attended previously as a federal politician.

Vuong noted that Chow told the Jewish community that “you’re never alone” after a shooting at the Jewish girls’ elementary school Bais Chaya Mushka in Toronto in late May.

Chow’s statement implied that “she stood with Toronto’s Jewish community,” Vuong said. “She lied.”

“It’s clear that if it was any other community, she’d have been there. No mayor, nor prime minister for that matter, would skip an event attended by 50,000 Canadians,” Vuong added. “Unfortunately, as we’ve seen in the aftermath of Oct. 7, these so-called leaders make exceptions when it comes to Jews.”

Vuong and his wife attended the event “to show our support for Jews both here at home in Canada and abroad, and that meant walking the talk and walking the walk.”

‘I was shocked at the depravity’

The politician had harsh words for the hundreds of pro-Hamas demonstrators, who used bullhorns and loudspeakers to broadcast anti-Israel chants and Islamic prayers and who reportedly sought to enter a place where the event was taking place and had to be barred by law enforcement.

“One thing I couldn’t believe was that pro-Hamas supporters brought in speakers and blared the rocket sirens that go off when Israel is under attack,” Vuong told JNS. “I was shocked at the depravity that someone would think to do that in the hopes of triggering participants.”

“Sadly, I was not surprised when other counter-protesters gave up all pretenses and started cheering outright for Hamas,” he added.

Hummel, the Toronto lawyer, called the protesters “pathetic, paltry and sinister.”

“We celebrate life and they clearly do not. We were there in blue and white with our children, singing songs about life. There was a world of difference,” he told JNS. “They were wearing black and had their faces covered.”

“They stood with swastika signs. Repulsive and pathetic,” he added. “The visuals could not have been starker of what we’re fighting for, and what we are fighting against.”

Mamann, the other Toronto lawyer, told JNS that some of the protesters tailed Jewish community members after the event in a harassing way.

“These people come clear across town and out of town to disrupt us. The police were on our side. But at the end of the day, the protection doesn’t finish when the walk finishes,” he said. “There are thousands of people trying to make it home, and there is still work to do.”

Ali Siadatan was among the non-Jewish Canadians of Iranian descent who participated in the event to voice their support for the Jewish state.

“I stand with Israel because I wish to live in a free world. Israel is at the epicenter of a global ideological war,” Siadatan told JNS. “Israel’s victory will push back the forces of Islam and Marxism. Israel’s defeat would encourage these very forces to explode in the West and in Canada.”

“Even the future of Iran very much depends on the victory or defeat of Israel against the regional forces of Islamic militancy,” Siadatan added.

At the end of the walk, JNS caught up with the rapper Nissim Black, who performed at the festival, which also had kid-friendly activities and musical performances.

“Incredible energy,” Black told JNS. “It was so special seeing all those people together celebrating Eretz Hakodesh,” the Holy Land.

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CFIA has begun in recent months to enforce regulations it enacted in 2018 “with vigor,” Rabbi Saul Emanuel, executive director of Montreal Kosher, told JNS. It appears to be doing so “on a whim,” the rabbi said.

The government agency’s actions have already resulted in a 60% drop in domestic kosher meat production, facility closures, higher prices and larger shipments of imported meats from other countries, according to Emanuel.

An independent organization that oversees Canadian slaughter procedures, CFIA mandates that cows be shot in the head with a bolt gun, to avoid causing pain to the animal. Kashrut laws require that an animal be killed with a single, rapid motion with a sharp knife that instantly kills the animal by severing the primary blood supply to the brain. Kosher laws preclude the use of bolts, as Canadian law requires.

CFIA requires that Jewish ritual slaughterers conduct a series of bodily checks in between each shechita to ensure that the animal is “insensible,” which means that slaughter houses must wait up to three minutes rather than 15 seconds between each slaughter. At an industrial scale, the three minutes add up.

Emanuel’s employer MK, the Kashruth Council of Canada in Toronto—known as COR—and the country’s two largest kosher meat producers, Shefa Meats and Mehadrin Meats, sued CFIA on March 8.

The plaintiffs allege that the government agency infringes on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees freedom of religious practice, according to Richard Rabkin, managing director of the Kashruth Council.

“I don’t want to speculate about the motivations of the CFIA and we have no indications that antisemitism is at play here, but when the Jewish community is being treated differently than other communities in Canada because of our religious beliefs, that is discrimination,” Rabkin told JNS.

‘Discrimination by effect’

Rabkin told JNS that the ideal would be a negotiated solution, and the four entities opted to sue only as a last resort and because the agency is independent and unbeholden to elected officials.

“I don’t think that there is a politician who can say ‘CFIA, we demand that you take the following action,’” he said.

COR, MK and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs issued a joint statement earlier this month stating that “regrettably, the CFIA has ignored the basic science, relying on inaccurate and flawed, selective literature review.”

“Kosher slaughter is humane. There is strong scientific evidence supporting this conclusion,” the three groups stated. “Over the past few months, we have produced several reports from experts demonstrating that following shechita, animals rapidly transition to immediate and irreversible insensibility and as a result do not experience any pain.”

The new CFIA guidelines “render kosher slaughter nearly impossible to sustain,” the organizations added.

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the advocacy arm of the Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA (United Israel Appeal), was brought in to serve as the “primary interlocutor” between parties, Shimon Koffler Fogel, CEO at CIJA, told JNS.

“I don’t think there is discrimination by intent, but there is discrimination by effect,” Fogel told JNS.

The lawsuit seeks “an injunction that is going to suspend the regulations, as they relate to shechita, until such time as CFIA and us can reach agreement, where it would compel CFIA to return to the table in a more engaged and constructive way,” he added.

Trust the science

The kashrut agencies have submitted several scientific studies, which maintain that Jewish ritual slaughter is painless and renders the animal dead immediately, to the government agency and to the court.

“CFIA has basically ignored our expert reports and without really proving, or providing proof otherwise, definitively that the animal might be suffering,” Rabkin told JNS.

One of the many burdens the government regulations place on kosher slaughterhouses is a corneal reflex test, which as Rabkin describes it, means that the animal’s eyeball is flicked to probe for a nervous system reaction.

“If there’s a nervous reaction, then it indicates to them that the animal may still be sensible, and the animal can’t be moved,” Rabkin said. That process is then continued every 20 seconds until the animal is “insensible” according to the government’s definition, which has no scientific bearing “on whether the animal is feeling pain or not,” he said.

The government agency has been “respectful” and “responsive” to CFIA in discussions over many years and typically “shares a desire to find solutions,” Fogel said.

“That’s changed a little bit here. Not necessarily any malice for Jews, but there has been a stubbornness about the positions that they’ve staked out, where they’re unwilling to consider the science,” he said. “They’re unwilling to consider the fact that they have it wrong.” (CFIA did not respond to queries from JNS.)

Fogel told JNS that CFIA ought to differentiate between “insensibility” criteria for animals shot with a bolt in the head and ritually slaughtered with a knife across the neck.

Jewish ritual slaughter “targets the cerebral cortex,” interrupting the flow of blood to the brain, he said. “The brain isn’t feeling any sensation, but the body doesn’t know that the brain is dead,” he added, of what he said are an animal’s involuntary twitches.

CFIA is “looking for particular indicators, eye movements, tongue position, animal posture, breathing—a whole series of different indicators, and those indicators, when an animal was stunned, are immediate,” Fogel added.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, a federal agency, provides a “blanket exemption” for shechita. That’s not what Canadian kosher agencies are seeking, “but we are looking for the appropriate set of regulations to guide ritual slaughter,” Fogel said.

Per the USDA, “the statutory requirement that livestock are rendered insensible to pain prior to shackling, hoisting, casting or cutting does not apply to the handling or restraint that is immediately associated with the ritual slaughter cut.”

Canadian kosher slaughterhouses have said that if production slows down more, they may lose enough business that they will have to shutter their doors, Rabkin said. Two have already shut down. Three remain in Quebec.

‘Not easy fixes’

The Jewish organizations enlisted Anthony Housefather, a Montreal-area federal parliamentarian who is Jewish, at the end of January to help “try to find a political solution,” though Housefather told JNS that he is not in direct contact with CFIA.

“These are not easy fixes, because the regulations exist,” he said. “It is unjust.”

Housefather and fellow parliamentarian Marco Mendicino are liaising with the Canadian ministers of health and justice, and with the prime minister’s office.

The lawmakers have had “only positive discussions, and they understand the position, and we all want a quick solution,” Housefather told JNS. (He declined to share specific details about the confidential talks.)

“I can’t presume to predict what in the end we will be able to prevail upon the CFIA to agree to,” Housefather said. “But we’re trying our best to find a solution to ensure shechita continues, and picks back up again in Canada.”

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Steven Rambam, a noted Nazi hunter, and Moshe Ronen, former head of the Canadian Jewish Congress, spoke to JNS after the Canadian government earlier this month declassified 15 pages of the “Rodal Report,” which relates to Nazis settling in Canada after the war.

Canada has “waited until every single mass murderer of Jews residing in Canada was literally or functionally beyond Canadian justice before releasing redacted documents,” Rambam told JNS.

Ronen, who led the Canadian Jewish Congress from 1998 to 2001, told JNS that Canadian Jewish leaders resisted the idea in the 1980s, when he was a student activist, to pressure Parliament to take action against former Nazis.

“There was a “sha-shtil kind of environment” in Canada, he said, using the Yiddish for “Sh. Quiet!”

“They thought ‘Never again’ was fine, but it was time to move forward, to maintain good relations with our government,” he said. He was told resources were better directed to advocating for Israel and combating antisemitism. “Of course, the standard argument was that, ‘We’re talking about an elderly population, and who’s going to prosecute these 80-year-old people?’” he said.

‘We were played’

When he was a Jewish communal leader, Ronen, motivated by his past activism and by his father having survived Auschwitz, discussed Nazis in Canada with then-Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and Lawrence MacAulay, a parliamentarian who was solicitor general.

The government agreed to review “a number of cases” at the time, Ronen told JNS. “But it was a real struggle in Canada. I think Canada stood out as protecting Nazi war criminals—definitely foot-dragging on this.”

He thinks accused Nazis received political and legal support from “certain communities,” some with Eastern European connections.

“It wasn’t a failed system or a poorly managed system but a complicit system, in which Canadian authorities simply chose not to pursue and not to correct errors. It’s clear we were played,” Ronen said. “I think if the evidence is compelling, Nazis still must be pursued. I think it’s a terrible stain on Canada. There is no statute of limitations on murder, especially on mass murder.”

Ronen also thinks that Canada risks repeating the same mistake, as its government discusses accepting Gazan refugees, which could also include war criminals.

“If we don’t learn our lessons, we’re not going to apply them to any challenges of immigration,” he said. “There are radical elements, in my view. Now it’s an actual danger.”

‘Ample opportunity’

Last September, Ottawa had an about-face after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office invited a former Nazi soldier, Yaroslav Hunka, 98, to attend Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech in Parliament. The House speaker hailed Hunka as a “Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero” and thanked him for his service.

The government has vowed to redouble its vetting system in the wake of the scandal.

The newly released papers from the Rodal Report, which was assembled in 1985 and made public in a significantly censored version in 1987, also contain embarrassing material about the Canadian government.

A Ukrainian native and daughter of Holocaust survivors, the historian Alti Roda researched and compiled the documents, which were a key part of the wider initiative, of the country’s Deschênes Commission on war criminals. The report was the first to reveal the scope of Canadian acceptance of former Nazis during the Cold War era.

War criminals and Nazi collaborators had “ample opportunity” to enter Canada in the 1940s and 1950s, per the report.

“The Rodal Report—known officially as Nazi War Criminals in Canada: The Historical and Policy Setting from the 1940s to the Present, by Alti Rodal—provides information on the historical policies and circumstances that led to the presence of Nazi war criminals in Canada,” the Canadian government announced on Feb. 1.

“While additional information that is no longer sensitive due to the passage of time can now be released, some information still remains protected in accordance with the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act,” it added.

‘Good character’

In 1967, Pierre Trudeau, then the justice minister and father of Canada’s current prime minister, opted not to strip a Latvian man, known as “Subject F,” of citizenship, though he received a death sentence in the Soviet Union for murdering 5,128 Jews.

The elder Trudeau, the newly opened files reveal, saved Subject F from deportation and subsequent execution by ruling that he was not required to reveal his past before entry into Canada. “The applicant’s obligation is to satisfy the court that he is of good character,” wrote Trudeau, who would become prime minister the next year.

“He is not required to satisfy the court that he, at no time in his past, committed an opprobrious act,” Trudeau added.

The Canadian Jewish Congress sought in vain to have Subject F expelled. The man died in Toronto in 1983, per the report.

Justin Trudeau, the current prime minister, was asked at a press conference why the government didn’t unseal the records previously.

“I think people understand that this is both an important part of the historical record, but also one that has implications around privacy, around community cohesion, around the kind of country we are,” he said. “These decisions are ones that are taken responsibly and never lightly.”

Rambam told JNS that it was “the worst-kept secret” that thousands of war criminals came into Canada with Jewish blood on their hands. In the 1990s, when he interviewed many of those people, they shamelessly admitted to having killed Jews, he told JNS.

“Not only did Canada know who these mass murderers were, but they actually kept track of them for a period of time,” Rambam told JNS. He added that the Canadian Jewish Congress, which no longer exists, also knew about the war criminals but didn’t act on the information.

Rambam told JNS that he shared information with the Jewish group after conducting his first undercover interview, in 1997, with the war criminal Antanas Kenstavicius, accused of murdering 5,000 Jews. When he turned the information over to the Canadian Jewish Congress, the latter handed him a 1947 letter revealing where Kenstavicius lived and worked and details of his alleged crimes, Rambam said.

“One of the most demotivating, depressing moments of the entire experience for me was when I saw that the Jewish community representatives, the Jewish community leaders, had this letter in their files for 50 years and did nothing,” he said.

Kenstavicius was “one of a very few put on trial in Canada,” Rambam said. “He died on the way to court.”

“The fact of the matter is, if you’re a war criminal and you went to Canada, you made the right choice. You escaped justice. You’ve died in your own bed, unlike your million or so victims,” Rambam said.

If the Canadian government decides to “develop the political will” to prosecute the few living Nazis, “even the stupidest, most incompetent, most newly-minted attorney could stall that legal procedure until the war criminal on trial had been dead and buried for 10 years,” he added.

‘Primary dumping ground for Nazis’

John Loftus, 74, who was part of the special investigations office of the U.S. Justice Department in the late 1970s, was part of the prosecution and deportation of Nazi war criminals in the United States.

Loftus testified before the Deschênes Commission but “every word was censored,” he told JNS. Canada was the “primary dumping ground for Nazis.”

He thinks that 100,000 Nazis, who arrived in the Americas, were never brought to justice. To Canada’s embarrassment, the country didn’t know until the 1980s that Soviets had infiltrated the service it used to screen for Nazis entering Canada.

“It was a hideous screw-up,” Loftus told JNS.

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The musical “Fiddler on the Roof” first proclaimed Shalom Aleichem to Broadway audiences in 1964, with Zero Mostel belting out the iconic “If I Were a Rich Man” song as Tevye the Dairyman, the father of seven daughters (five of whom have roles in the play). Bea Arthur played Yenta in the production, whose Boris Aronson-designed sets evoked Marc Chagall’s shtetl paintings.

Sixty years later, Tevye’s misquotations muddying the Torah, coupled with his witty megalomania, have reverberated through the halls of American theaters in countless productions. The play is said to be performed daily somewhere around the world since it first opened on Sept. 22, 1964, according to the 2019 documentary “Fiddler: Miracle of Miracles.”

Samantha Massell, who played Tevye’s second daughter Hodel in the 2015 Broadway production, told JNS the play “is a flawless musical.”

The play is “one of the most recognizable titles in the musical theater canon” and “one of the few that has made an indelible mark on American culture,” she said.

The original Broadway version, with Jerry Bock’s music, Sheldon Harnick’s lyrics and Jerome Robbins’s choreography, ran for eight years, winning nine Tony Awards in 1965, including best musical, score, direction and choreography.

Alfred Molina, Theodore Bikel and Harvey Fierstein have performed Tevye over the years in the play based on Sholem Aleichem’s Tevye and His Daughters.

As the play approaches the age at which it is entitled to a senior discount, it has lost three key figures in the past year.

Norman Jewison, who directed the 1971 film version, died on Jan. 20 at the age of 97. Harnick, the songwriter, died at 99 on June 23, 2023, and Chaim Topol, who played Tevye in the film, died at 87 on March 8, 2023.

Tevye jokes in the play, after inventing an appearance in his dream of Grandmother Tzeitel, that she looks very good for a woman who had been dead 30 years. What the next 60 years might look like for “Fiddler,” as it approaches the rabbinically endorsed, ripe old age of 120, is an open question.

An inhospitable climate 

Ruth Wisse, professor emerita of Yiddish literature and comparative literature at Harvard University and distinguished senior fellow at the Tikvah Fund, is bearish on the future of “Fiddler.”

Wisse, who created an eight-part series of online Tikvah classes about “Tevye the Dairyman,” told JNS that the tales were personal to Sholem Aleichem.

The writer described his “responsibility to care for children who go their different ways, writing it at a time of great generational conflict,” Wisse said. “There are many such periods in history, but some are more acute than others. This is a recurring subject.”

The show addresses “the idea of a minority that is under siege,” in this case Jews. It has a timeless aspect to it, save perhaps as antisemitism surges after Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel.

“You tell me what’s happening in America,” Wisse told JNS, noting that she is sure that many university theater departments wouldn’t dare stage the play today.

“Will it play to the next generation? In the current political atmosphere?” she asked. “I don’t think so.”

Universalized Americana

Set in the fictional shtetl of Anatevka in the early 1900s, “Fiddler” revolves around the poor milkman Tevye and his struggles to maintain Jewish tradition in changing times, culminating in his older daughters’ decisions to seek love outside of arranged marriages, and in one case, outside of the Jewish community.

Scholars have said that the play reflects American struggles with tradition and modernity.

Massell, the actress, told JNS that “Fiddler” is iconic Americana, while it has also found universal appeal. She noted that Joe Stein, who wrote the original play’s book, was talking with the producer of the first “Fiddler” production in Japan. The latter asked Stein if Americans truly understand the play, given how Japanese it is.

“This story is so timeless. Yes, it is an intrinsically Jewish story, but the themes of tradition, family and assimilation are relevant across so many cultures,” Massell said. “Everyone can relate.”

Sholem Aleichem appears to have created the Tevye character in 1894, which means the dairyman gets 130 candles on his cake. The writer penned the final Tevye story in 1914 (110 years ago), and “Tevye and His Daughters” became an off-Broadway musical in 1957. In 1959, New York’s Channel 13 aired “The World of Sholom Aleichem” in its show “Play of the Week,” starring Mostel.

The film critic Jan Lisa Huttner, who has published two books on “Fiddler,” notes differences in the iterations of “Fiddler.” The written stories have a male matchmaker with a minor role, not Yenta, for example. She told JNS that it is “to the credit of the creators” that they managed to universalize the play, whose financial backers thought it was too parochial for American sensibilities when it was first pitched.

“It has universal truths,” Huttner told JNS.

“Parents, they have a certain image in their mind of what their children are going to be, and they’re responsible for them in many ways, shaping and molding that child,” she said. “Children on their own encounter strengths and weaknesses and everything.”

The story must also be viewed in the context of history, she urged.

“In periods of great turmoil, there’s going to be different turns of events in significant ways, and that’s what ‘Fiddler’ captures,” she said. In the story, that turmoil included tsarist marauders that disturbed, or pogrommed, Jews.

Too much ado about tradition?

Lovers of the show think of tradition as a central and universal theme; “Tradition,” which notes that a tradition-less people would have lives as shaky as a fiddler on a roof, is among the play’s most admired songs.

Many Orthodox Jews, however, view the production as advocating for assimilation, or at least rethinking Jewish religious practices and values.

Huttner, who consulted on the documentary “Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles,” thinks tradition is a minor plot element.

“Excuse me, that’s in the first five minutes. You’ve got another three hours to go,” she said. “At the end of it, it turns out that our lives are as unstable as the fiddler on the roof. We’re all in the balance.”

Alisa Solomon, who directs the arts and culture concentration at Columbia Journalism School, told JNS the play “is beautifully built. The songs are wonderful. It’s completely emotionally engaging.”

“For us Jews, we think of the show as speaking directly to us, addressing the things that we recognize and identify with—and that’s all true,” she said. “At the same time, it’s traveling on a parallel track of universalism, where children are making their own lives, and moving away.”

Solomon, who is the author of the book Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof, added that historical forces, “for better and worse, often worse, are pressuring different groups of people to have to uproot their lives.”

“All of those things are always going on,” she said. “In the show, it gives us windows into the experiences, feelings and meanings of all of those things.”

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