Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Judaism, Fiddler on the Roof, and Humanity

Author:Paul Snively
Posted:8/27/2000; 11:54:24 AM
Topic:Judaism, Fiddler on the Roof, and Humanity
Msg #:20363
Prev/Next:20362 / 20364

Dave Winer: Listen to Zero Mostel and Maria Karnilova sing in Fiddler on the Roof... Such vulnerability, such simple humanity.

I love Fiddler on the Roof; my parents own the videotapes and I need to get the DVD. A production of the play was also the first date my Jewish wife and I went on. :-)

The song from Fiddler that sticks hardest in my mind is the hauntingly beautiful "Sunrise, Sunset." I remember seeing the movie with my parents. I doubt I was any older than 11 or 12. And for that 11- or 12-year-old boy, a veil was suddenly lifted on the entire parent-child relationship! Here were these adults, getting married, but they were still someone else's children, and the parents were proud but also very frightened, wanting to be supportive, wanting to say and do the right thing, but not at all clear what that was. The uncertainty, coupled with the realization that time was marching on whether they were certain what to say to their adult children or not, to me was and is profoundly moving.

As if this wasn't bad enough, this is also the scene in which the pogrom comes. Horrible, horrible! I was only 11 or 12 but I knew enough to know that this didn't make sense; why were these wonderful people being attacked!? Because they're Jews?

I may be a Christian, but I have always taken the notion that the Jewish people are the chosen people of God very seriously and attempted (not always successfully, of course) to minimize my ignorance of Judaism. I very much think of Christianity as the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy rather than a "replacement" for Judaism, the latter philosophy being the source of 2,000 years of misery. Even ignoring the religious angle, the Jewish contributions of ethical monotheism as a governing principle and a progressive cosmos as a scientific principle have been of incalculable value to western civilization.

Finally, of course, there are the linguistic contributions, with even Americans outside of New York and LA saying "You klutz!" and "That guy, you know, he's a real mensch," and thanks to Laverne and Shirley, "He's a real schlamiel" and "He's a real schlamazel." :-)

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