Tevye

When you read the short stories, monologues and novels of Sholem Aleichem (the pen name of Sholem Rabinovitch, 1859–1916), the colorful characters seem to spring off the page and get a life of their own. Yet this prodigious and prolific Yiddish author found himself struggling with the dramatization of his own work, which often flopped on the New York Yiddish stage. For that reason, the great Jacob P. Adler refused to play Tevye the Milkman, the protagonist of a series of short stories about a Jewish farmer and his daughters. Luckily, Maurice Schwartz, the actor-director of the Yiddish Art Theater, later produced and starred in the play, eventually adapting it for this 1939 classic Yiddish-language film shot in New Jersey. Those who know Fiddler on the Roof may be surprised by Aleichem’s own dramatic adaptation, which takes more liberties than the musical creators did while presenting a much older Tevye and focusing mostly on the scandalous elopement of Chava and the gentile Fyedka. The dialogues will delight anyone with an affinity for Yiddish language and culture, and Tevye’s struggle to uphold tradition in the face of social tumult remains archetypal. Tevye was the first film not in English to be added to the Library of Congress’s prestigious American Film Registry, and will be shown in a restored print from the National Center for Jewish Film.