Fiddler on the Roof. Poster of the 1971 movie and cover of the 1894 book, Tevye's Daughters
VS3
Tevye's Daughters
Sholom Aleichem, 1894
movie vs book
Norman Jewison, 1971

In 1905, Tevye, a poor Jewish milkman living in the Ukrainian village of Anatevka, a typical shtetl in the Pale of Settlement of Imperial Russia, compares the lives of the Jews of Anatevka to a fiddler on the roof, using tradition to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking their necks. Tzeitel loves her childhood sweetheart, the tailor Motel Kamzoil, and frantically begs her father not to make her marry Lazar.


Fiddler on the Roof. Poster of the 1971 movie and cover of the 1964 book
VS3
Fiddler on the Roof
Joseph Stein, 1964
movie vs book
Norman Jewison, 1971

In 1905, Tevye, a poor Jewish milkman living in the Ukrainian village of Anatevka, a typical shtetl in the Pale of Settlement of Imperial Russia, compares the lives of the Jews of Anatevka to a fiddler on the roof, using tradition to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking their necks. Tzeitel loves her childhood sweetheart, the tailor Motel Kamzoil, and frantically begs her father not to make her marry Lazar.