The original story set in Russian Ukraine of the play and film Fiddler on the Roof is more than about a poor Jewish man, Tevye, having trouble with one of his daughters. She has eloped with a Christian. It is far deeper than a father concerned about star crossed lovers, it is more than just one daughter, in fact the star crossed lover is just one of five daughters to marry off. The oldest has an offer from the rich butcher but she is in love with the poor tailor, the second is also presenting some drama as she is courted by a young revolutionary who is filling her head with radical politics. And the third daughter runs off with the Christian literature fan. There are two younger daughters yet to grow up to be troublesome. Life seems to be falling apart, the traditional values with the father being listened to, his authority being accepted all up in the air.
Life would be so much sweeter if only he was a rich man. Ah, to ‘build a big tall house with rooms by the dozen, right in the middle of the town’, what a dream!
And then there is the revolution.
Russia was in trouble. In 1905 it was struggling with the humiliation of losing the the Russo-Japanese war and social unrest as workers were starving, but the aristocracy were living off the fat of the land. Imperial growth from the mid 18th century had seen at the inclusion of parts of Eastern Europe into Greater Russia and with it a large population of Jews. Religious conflict followed as the control of Russian Orthodox was threatened. A number of pogroms followed, including a severe one in 1903. The Jews were targeted, partly as a deflection from the real issues which were besetting Russia at the time.
So, getting back to the story, to the Fiddler on the Roof, not only was Tevye having trouble with his daughters, but he and his Jewish neighbours were being forced out of the village they lived in, being moved on to ‘anywhere but here’. The mantra in part was convert to ‘our’ religion or move. But where to? Other parts of European Russia was forbidden unless they converted, a bit like the acceptance of Jews into Catholic Spain seven hundred years earlier, there the Spanish Inquisition was established to ensure compliance. So it was convert or move to Siberia, the Caucasus, the Far East or Central Asia, the far flung outposts of the Russian Empire or perhaps even America.
Look the other way, it’s the Jews who are the problem here, look the other way, nothing to see here, look the other way.
Throughout the Christian era it has been the same for Jews. Things got tough, blame the outliers, blame those at the fringes, blame the Jews, after all, they killed Christ, didn’t they?
Russian pogroms through the nineteenth century saw millions of Jews escape to the USA, where their mark on culture and business is most visible; in music, Bernstein, Gershwin, Mendelssohn, more recently, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, Bette Midler, Billy Joel just to name a few. Movies; Warner Brothers, MGM, the Cohen Brothers, Weinstein, again the list goes on and on. In business too, some of the most successful are Jewish, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan and so that list too goes on and on. In literature too, Jews are prominent. Writers such as Gertrude Stein, Saul Bellow, Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, again just to mention a few.
Much of the resentment against Jews has been because of their ability to be successful without considering why this happens, why so many are so very successful, and that too lies in their history. As being perpetually marginalised but having a religion based of a written coda, and learning to deal with money to create wealth because they were denied the right to own land, the traditional foundation of wealth throughout Europe, they developed skills which were marketable in other fields; finance, entertainment, the arts, business as well as in academia.
The resentment continues. In the USA the KKK also targeted Jews and Jewish establishments and even in recent times, with the recent increase in racial violence, attacks on Synagogs have been reported.
Is it any wonder then that the creation of Zionism in the late nineteenth century focussed on establishing a safe place for the Jewish population, a safe place to practice their religion, and what better place than the lands promised in their holy books, the land of Israel as promised to their forefather Abraham thousands of years ago. A safe place to be who they are, Jews. After the shock of the Holocaust, international sympathy grew so that on November 29, 1947 the General Assembly of the newly formed United Nations adopted a resolution for the establishment of an Independent Jewish State in Palestine, partitioning the Mandated British Protectorate of Palestine into two economic zones, effectively, a two state agreement.
Immediately after the signing of the UN agreement, the Israeli leadership which included the first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion as well as several men to become Prime Ministers later including Yitzhak Rabin and Menachem Begin who had been part of a ‘terrorist’ group Irgun, fighting against the British occupation prior to 1947 which included the bombing of the British headquarters in the King David Hotel in TelAviv killing 91 people.
The fight to establish a safe place for Jews, or Israelis continues today, but the agreement made by signing the establishment of Israel and the partitioning of the region was quickly contested with the ethnic cleansing of Israel: the bulldozing of Palestinian villages, displacing over 750,000 Palestinians as refugees who sought sanctuary in neighbouring Syria, Lebanon and Jordan where many of their descendants still live in refugee camps. Other Palestinians were settled in the Gaza Strip, where they have been ever since.
The attack by Hamas on 7 October last year was on farms and villages which were Palestinian lands prior to 1947. (I am not condoning or minimising that attack in any way.)
The wars of 1967 and 1973 saw Israeli forces occupy East Jerusalem, The West Bank and Golan Heights which have remained as occupied territory since, but under UN conventions and international law remain Palestinian Territories and cannot be claimed as part of Israel, although Israel prefers the term ‘Disputed Territories’ and has engaged in development of Israeli settlements throughout the region.
Since October 7 last year the persecution of Palestinians and Bedouin people who live in the Palestinian Territories have seen an increase in violence and persecution, as there appears to be an increase in the active campaign to drive them from their lands.
While the focus is on Gaza and the destruction of anything that resembles a place to live in that overcrowded space, the gaze on what is occurring on the West Bank is averted… look over there at Gaza, remember October 7, release the hostages, nothing to see here, as villages are attacked, people harassed on a daily basis, security check, arrests for no apparent reason, a constant level of fear and intimidation.
Basic human rights are being denied on an ethnic basis, undesirables are being driven out but have no where to go while the world’s eyes are focussed on Gaza
It seems that the play Fiddler on the Roof is being re-scripted. But no option to convert to Judaism, no offer of resettlement, not even in Australia, a land of immigrants, just go anywhere but here… except where?
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