Reading Selection - December 2004
Tevye the Dairyman, by Sholem Alaichem
SHOLEM
ALAICHEM Pseudonym of Solomon Rabinowitz (also spelled "Shalom"
and "Sholem" that is a traditional Hebrew and Yiddish greeting and
means "peace be with you"). Yiddish short-story writer, dramatist,
and humorist. Recognized as a best Jewish writer who ever lived in Russia
and wrote in Yiddish. Regarded as one of the most creative writers in Yiddish.
Famous for his sad and ironical novels and stories that describe the life
of simple Russian Jews in small towns.
Born in Pereyaslav (now Pereyaslav-Khmel'nitsky), near Kiev, Ukraine. Worked
as a teacher and rabbi. In 1905 fled Jewish persecution in Russia and in 1914
settled in New York City.
Most important works include "Stempenyu" (translated in English
in 1913), "Inside Kasrilovka" (1938), "The Old Country"
(1946), "Tevye's Daughters" (1949), and "Adventures of Mottel,
The Cantor's Son" (1953). Most known characters are Menachem Mendel,
the typical small-town Jew; the eternal dreamer and schemer (Luftmensch);
and the best loved, Tobias the Dairyman (Tevye der Milchiger), an indestructible
optimist. A well-known musical comedy "Fiddler on the Roof" (1964)
is based on Sholom Aleichem's stories about Tevye.
Of all the characters in modern Jewish fiction, the most beloved is Tevye, the compassionate, irrepressible, Bible-quoting dairyman from Anatevka, who has been immortalized in the writings of Sholem Aleichem and in acclaimed and award-winning theatrical and film adaptations.
And no Yiddish writer was more beloved than Tevye's creator, Sholem Rabinovich (1859-1916), the "Jewish Mark Twain," who wrote under the pen name of Sholem Aleichem. Beautifully translated by Hillel Halkin, here is Sholem Aleichem's heartwarming and poignant account of Tevye and his daughters, together with the "Railroad Stories," twenty-one tales that examine human nature and modernity as they are perceived by men and women riding the trains from shtetl to shtetl.
Reviews of Tevye the Dairyman Include:
"With
his supple, intelligent translation, Halkin makes accessible the poignant
short stories by the legendary Yiddish humorist Sholem Rabinovich (18591916),
who wrote under the nom de plume ``Sholem Aleichem,'' a Yiddish salutation.
As Halkin elucidates in his introduction, Tevye's self-mocking but deeply
affecting monologues (which inspired the play and film Fiddler on the Roof
satisfy on several levels: as a psychological analysis of a father's love
for his daughters, despite the disappointments they bring him; as a paradigm
of the tribulations and resilience of Russian Jewry and the disintegration
of shtetl life at the twilight of the Czarist Empire; and as a Job-like
theological debate with God. The 20 Railroad Storiesthe monologues of a
traveling salesman and his fellow Jewish travelersdepict Jewish thieves
and arsonists, feuding spouses, draft evaders, grieving parents and assimilationists.
Like the eight Tevye tales, these unprettified stories of simple people
and their harsh realities summon a bygone era, but their appeal and application
are timeless. Bringing both groups of tales together for the first time
in English, this first volume in Schocken's Library of Yiddish Classics
series is an auspicious event." Publisher's Weekly (July)
"This
fresh translation is likely to serve as the indispensable Sholem Aleichem
for some time to come." -Cynthia Ozick
"The editor and translator have done brilliantly." -Saul Bellow
"A
body of work that is very much alive and that continues to dazzle us with
its brilliance, wit, and humanity." -Leonard Nimoy
Film
Adaptation:
Long before "Fiddler On the Roof," renowned Yiddish stage
actor Maurice Schwartz brought Sholem Aleichem's beloved tales of Tevye
the Dairyman to the screen in this classic drama. Shot on a farm in Jericho,
Long Island, Schwartz's film centers on the conflict caused by the marriage
of Tevye's daughter Khave to a non-Jewish Ukrainian intellectual. This is
the definitive, restored edition of one of the greatest milestones in Yiddish
cinema.