Tevye's Daughters is the book that was made into the blockbuster play and movie, "Fiddler on the Roof." This movie brought us such famous and universally recognizable songs as "If I were a Rich Man," "Matchmaker, Matchmaker Make me a Match," "Tradition" and "Sunrise, Sunset." Trvye the dairyman is one of the most delightful and amusing characters in all of fiction, and this chronicle of Tevye and his daughters is, beyond question, the great Jewish humorist's masterpiece. Tevye was baffled by his daughters. That he had seven daughters and no sons-well, that was God's will, and Tevye loved them all dearly. And the girls-ah, their world revolved around papa and they gave him all their devotion. But as they grew up, they saw that the world was big and changing, that there were other ideas and other people. What made it so difficult for Tevye was not that they were such fine and lovely girls - dark-eyed Beilke, laughing Sprintze, brave Hodel - but that they had minds and wills of their own. Tevye couldn't quite understand that - it wasn't supposed to be that way. His gay heart was heavy at times, and the girls mixed tears with their laughter. When you have read this book, you will know why many Jews refer to Sholom Aleichem not as "the great Jewish humorist," but rather as one of "the greatest writers of our time." There are short stories in this book too: "If I Were Rothschild," "The Littlest of Kings," and a dozen others that display Sholom Aleichem's wonderful storytelling gift at its best.

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.

A sparkling and eye-opening history of the Broadway musical that changed the world In the half-century since its premiere, Fiddler on the Roof has had an astonishing global impact. Beloved by audiences the world over, performed from rural high schools to grand state theaters, Fiddler is a supremely potent cultural landmark. In a history as captivating as its subject, award-winning drama critic Alisa Solomon traces how and why the story of Tevye the milkman, the creation of the great Yiddish writer Sholem-Aleichem, was reborn as blockbuster entertainment and a cultural touchstone, not only for Jews and not only in America. It is a story of the theater, following Tevye from his humble appearance on the New York Yiddish stage, through his adoption by leftist dramatists as a symbol of oppression, to his Broadway debut in one of the last big book musicals, and his ultimate destination—a major Hollywood picture. Solomon reveals how the show spoke to the deepest conflicts and desires of its time: the fraying of tradition, generational tension, the loss of roots. Audiences everywhere found in Fiddler immediate resonance and a usable past, whether in Warsaw, where it unlocked the taboo subject of Jewish history, or in Tokyo, where the producer asked how Americans could understand a story that is "so Japanese." Rich, entertaining, and original, Wonder of Wonders reveals the surprising and enduring legacy of a show about tradition that itself became a tradition. Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles.

A sweeping historical novel in the grand tradition of Russian literature that imagines what happens to the characters of Fiddler on the Roof after the curtain falls. The world knows well the tale of Tevye, the beloved Jewish dairyman from the shtetl Anatevka of Tsarist Russia. In stories originally written by Sholem Aleichem and then made world-famous in the celebrated musical Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye, his wife Golde, and their five daughters dealt with the outside influences that were encroaching upon their humble lives. But what happened to those remarkable characters after the curtain fell? In After Anatevka, Alexandra Silber picks up where Fiddler left off. Second-eldest daughter Hodel takes center stage as she attempts to join her Socialist-leaning fiancé Perchik to the outer reaches of a Siberian work camp. But before Hodel and Perchik can finally be together, they both face extraordinary hurdles and adversaries—both personal and political—attempting to keep them apart at all costs. A love story set against a backdrop of some of the greatest violence in European history, After Anatevaka is a stunning conclusion to a tale that has gripped audiences around the globe for decades.

The Crawley sisters of Downton Abbey? The Bennet sisters of Pride & Prejudice? The daughters born to Zelophehad? Why mention any of these women in the same breath as the beloved characters in the Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof? Conventional wisdom has it that Fiddler on the Roof is about Tevye, a beleaguered patriarch persecuted by his neighbors and "desperately clinging to Tradition." But in this surprising eBook, Jan Lisa Huttner turns the reader's focus away from Tevye and onto his daughters. What is tradition? Who makes the matches? Should people who want to marry each other be allowed to make that choice? These questions are just as important now as they were fifty years ago-in 1964-when Fiddler on the Roof made its original debut on the Broadway stage. Other recent books have discussed the stories of Sholem Aleichem and the canvases of Marc Chagall, the two undisputed sources of Fiddler on the Roof. But for Huttner, the creators of Fiddler on the Roof were also participants in a Great Conversation about women's rights conducted over a span of two thousand years from the original compilation of the Hebrew Bible right up to the present day. Huttner examines the "synergies" that made Fiddler on the Roof such a phenomenal-and unexpected-success back in 1964. These synergies not only help account for Fiddler on the Roof's extraordinary longevity, but also explain why stage performances of Fiddler on the Roof continue to be so resonant today. Huttner writes in a lively style but her intent is deeply serious. When we skip over, trivialize, or otherwise ignore the female characters in Fiddler on the Roof, we not only denigrate half of the world's population, we also fail to appreciate the full power of a great work of art.

"After Anatevka follows Sholom Aleichem's timeless character, Tevye the milkman, as he moves his family from Russia to a kibbutz in Palestine. Tevye, the wisecracking, Bible-quoting man of God, tells the story against the backdrop of the conflict between Jews and Arabs in the Holy Land prior to the establishment of the State of Israel"--Back cover.