What is the Fiddler on the Roof about?

Answer 1

Set in early 20th Century Russia, Fiddler On The Rooftells the story of a village milkman and his large family, a wive and five daughters (seven in the original novella by Sholom Aleichem). This is set against the background of the extreme antisemitism in Jewish shtetls in the Russian Pale (today's Ukraine), highlighting the injustice and persecution meted out to the the Jewish population by mandate of the Tsar. It is a tale that is alternately fun & jolly, and very tragic.

The story ends when the village is forcibly evacuated by local Cossacks by order of the Tsar. As the inhabitants pack their furniture and belongings onto wagons and trudge away to seek new homes, the moral remains that the rich and powerful can never kill the spirit of the poor masses. They might be able to take their homes from them, but they can never rob them of their pride, their dignity or their dreams, and the spirit of a community lies within the hearts and souls of it's people, not merely in buildings.

The Fiddler on the Roof is truly about Tevye the village milkman and his family, the pa-pa of 5 daughters who live in a small Russian village called Anatevka! One day Yente the village matchmaker comes to his house with a match for his eldest daughter Tzietel, Tevye agrees with his wife Golde's choice of husband even though he doesn't know who it's to be but the village butcher Lazer Wolf. But as soon as he tells his daughter she can't stand it as she made a pledge with the village tailor Motel who that day comes to Tevye and asks for Tzietel's hand in marriage and gets it. From then on his next 2 daughters Hodel and Chavaleh choose their own husbands too even though that is not how Anatevka is run as they are very strict on Tradition!!!! So Hodel's fiance is in a settlement in Siberia where she moves to and Chavaleh stays in Anatevka but her father couldn't stand her husband. It sadly ends with a letter from the authorities saying that in Anatevka and all Russian villages Jewish citizens MUST LEAVE THEIR HOMES. They had no say in the matter.

Even though Chavaleh married out of Jewish faith she was allowed to stay but her husband said to Tevye, Golde and her 2 younger sisters 'that they too were leaving as they can't stay around people who can do such things to others' so they had to say goodbye to fellow townspeople forever as they will never see each other ever again.

Answer 2

I'm not sure, but I saw it as a kid, it was really long, and some people might find it boring, but it's regarded as a classic. If I remember correctly, it's set somewhere like in Hungary or Russia or somewhere, and it's about a poor farmer who tries to marry all of his daughters off to rich men. It's a musical, and I remember Topol was starring in it, he was the Greek Secret Agent in one of the James Bond films. And in Fiddler On The Roof he sings that song If I Were A Rich Man. And at one stage there was a fiddler on the roof of a house playing a fiddle, and I remember he was playing a blind man, or pretending to be blind, in a James Bond movie. Also Paul Michael Glaser starred in Fiddler On The Roof, he was one of the two of Starsky and Hutch in the 70s TV series.