Tevye, the Dairyman (Aleichem)

Tevye, the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories
Sholem Aleichem, 1894
Knopf Doubleday
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780805210699


Summary
Twenty two stories about Tevye, the best loved character in modern Jewish fiction.

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 of Fiddler on the Roof.

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. (From the publisher.)

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Author Bio
• Real name—Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
• Birth—February (or March?), 1859
• Where—present-day Ukraine, Imperial Russia
• Death—May 13, 1916
• Where—New York City, USA
• Education—local schooling in Ukraine

Sholem Aleichem was the pen name of Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich, the popular humorist and Russian Jewish author of Yiddish literature. His works include novels, short stories, and plays. He did much to promote Yiddish writers, and was the first to pen children's literature in Yiddish.

His work has been widely translated. The 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof, loosely based on Sholem Aleichem's stories about his character Tevye, the Dairyman, was the first commercially successful English-language play about Eastern European Jewish life.

He was born to a poor Jewish family in the Poltava region, east of Kiev in 1859. At the age of fifteen, inspired by Robinson Crusoe, he composed his own, Jewish version of the famous novel and decided to dedicate himself to writing. He adopted the comic pseudonym Sholem Aleichem, derived from a common greeting meaning "peace be with you", or colloquially, "hi, how are you".

After completing local school with excellent grades in 1876, he left home in search for work. For three years, Sholem Aleichem taught a wealthy landowner's daughter Olga (Golde) Loev, who against the wishes of her father became his wife in 1883. Over the years, they had six children, including painter Norman Raeben—whose teaching Bob Dylan credits as an important influence on Blood on the Tracks—and Yiddish writer, Lyalya (Lili) Kaufman. Lyalya's daughter Bel Kaufman wrote the novel, Up the Down Staircase, which was made into a successful film.

At first, Sholem Aleichem wrote in Russian and Hebrew. But from 1883 on, he produced over forty volumes in Yiddish which was accessible to nearly all literate East European Jews. Most writing for Russian Jews at the time was in Hebrew, the liturgical language used largely by learned Jews.

Sholem Aleichem also used his personal fortune to encourage other Yiddish writers. In 1888-1889, he put out two issues of an almanac, Di Yidishe Folksbibliotek ("The Yiddish Popular Library") which gave important exposure to many young Yiddish writers. In 1890, Sholem Aleichem lost his entire fortune in a stock speculation and could not afford to print the almanac's third issue. It was during this time he contracted tuberculosis.

In 1905, he left Russia, forced by waves of pogroms that swept through southern Russia, settling eventually in Geneva, Switzerland. Despite his great popularity, many of Sholem Aleichem's works had not generated much revenue for the author, and he was forced to take up an exhausting schedule of travelling and touring in order to make money to support himself and his family. In July, 1908, while on a reading tour in Russia, he collapsed on a train going through Baranowicz. He was diagnosed with a relapse of acute hemorrhagic tuberculosis and spent the next four years living as a semi-invalid; only eventually becoming healthy enough to return to a regular writing schedule. During this period the family was largely supported by donations from friends and admirers.

In 1914, Sholem Aleichem and most his family emmigrated to the United States, where they made their home in New York City. Sholem Aleichem died in New York in 1916, aged 57, while still working on his last novel, Motl the Cantor's son, and was laid to rest at Mount Carmel cemetery in Queens.

At the time, his funeral was one of the largest in New York City history, with an estimated 100,000 mourners. The next day, his will was printed in the New York Times and was read into the Congressional Record of the United States.

He told his friends and family to gather, "read my will, and also select one of my stories, one of the very merry ones, and recite it in whatever language is most intelligible to you." "Let my name be recalled with laughter," he added, "or not at all."

In 1997, a monument dedicated to Sholem Aleichem was erected in Kiev; another was erected in 2001 in Moscow. (From Wikipedia.)

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Book Reviews
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 Stories, the monologues of a traveling salesman and his fellow Jewish travelers, depict 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.
Publishers Weekly

(Audio version.) These three cassettes contain six Sholem Aleichem stories (one per side) about Tevye, the irrepressible character made familiar by Fiddler on the Roof. If listeners absorb them in order, the story of Tevye and his family unfolds chronologically, covering a period of several years. The author's use of language paints pictures which enable listeners to see rural Russia at the turn of the century. They also get a taste for what it meant to be a Jew in that time and place. Even though many of the anecdotes are humorous in nature, the issues are serious and include courting and marriage customs, dress and food, and persecution of Jews (pogroms and expulsions). Theodore Bikel is the perfect choice as storyteller, and not only because he has portrayed Tevye on the stage. His resonant voice and acting ability add to the portrayal of Tevye and other characters. By slight changes in inflection, Bikel brings every character to life, male or female. His reading includes the explanation of all Hebrew and Yiddish phrases, so even listeners unfamiliar with Jewish culture and history can follow the story. Libraries with audiobooks in their collections will want to add this abridgment of the Sholem Aleichem stories. —Shelley Glantz, Arlington bHigh School, MA
Library Journal

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Discussion Questions
1. Tevye often contradicts himself. For example, he says, "...it happened early one summer, around Shavuos time. But why should I lie to you? It might have been a week or two before Shavuos too, unless it was several weeks after...." (P 3). How does this affect his credibility as a narrator? This admission of doubt comes at the beginning of the novel. How would it change your feelings about Tevye if it came at the end?

2. In "Tevye Blows a Small Fortune," the reader is told the outcome at the beginning of the story, indeed in the title. Given this, what provides that tension in the story; what makes you keep reading it?

3. Tevye talks a lot about undergoing personal change. In "Tevye Strikes it Rich" he says "I was the same man then that I am now, only not at all like me; that is, I was Tevye then too, but not the Tevye you're looking at." (P. 4), and in "Today's Children" he says, "I'm no longer the Tevye I once was." (P. 35). Is this simply a literary device intended to capture Tevye's voice, or does it have significance in the story? If significant, what does it tell us about Tevye?

4. These stories are told from Tevye's point of view, as if he were relating episodes of his life to Sholem Aleichem. How does this narrative structure shape our perceptions of Tevye? Sholem Aleichem wanted to create a new voice in Yiddish fiction; in what ways does he succeed?

5. Unlike in Fiddler on the Roof, the film/play based on this novel, Tevye does not live in Anatevka, or any sort of insular Jewish community. How does this affect any notions of shtetl life that we might have received from watching the film or play? Why do you think Sholem Aleichem decided to place Tevye where he does in the world?

6. Tevye disowns Chava for marrying Chvedka, a Christian. Intermarriage is common today, but it is oft sited as one cause of the decline of American Judaism. Tevye asks, "What did being a Jew or not a Jew matter." (P. 81). Perhaps intermarriage is not the end of the world, but is it something we should worry about? What do you think Tevye would say about this?

7. Bielke is Tevye's one daughter who marries for money, yet Tevye actually counsels her against it. Has Tevye changed his mind about how good it is to be rich? If so, what causes this change? What does Bielke's condition tell us about Sholem Aleichem's opinion of the rich?

8. How would you characterize the relationship between Jews and non-Jews in this novel?

9. Hillel Halkin, the translator, claims that the Jewish humor of this period and especially the humor in Tevye the Dairyman served the purpose of "...neutraliz(ing) the hostility of the outside world, first by internalizing it ('Why should I care what the world thinks of me, when I think even less of myself?') and then by detonating it through a joke ('Nevertheless, the world doesn't know what it's talking about, because in fact I am much cleverer that it is—the proof being that it has no idea how funny I am and I do!')..." (P. xvi). What do you think about this theory? Is this why Tevye is funny? (Is Tevye funny?) Do you think that this sort of humor is a useful psychological tool for a people facing oppression?

10. The stories that comprise Tevye the Dairyman were written over the course of several decades with little or no overall plan for their structure. Do they comprise a novel, or are they simply a collection of short stories featuring the same main character? What is the evidence in favor of and against each possibility?

11. With the exception of the first episode, Tevye suffers nothing but one misfortune after another. Do you consider him to be a tragic hero? Why or why not? In what ways does Tevye bring his suffering on himself?

12. Consider both Tevye's Jewish observance and his relationship with God. Is Tevye a good Jew?

13. Several of the episodes in the novel are not included in the play/film version. Why do you think these particular scenes were cut from the story? How do you think Sholem Aleichem's conception of his novel and characters might differ from that of the filmmaker's?

(Questions, prepared by Laura Sheppard-Brick for The National Yiddish Center.)

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