Fiddler on the roof - local production

[Sunrisesunset24]

Morning all. I went to see a production of Fiddler on the Roof last week (check out my tribute username 😉) by a local am dram type theatre company. I was expecting it to be a bit cringily "fake Jewish" in this not very diverse corner of the UK and on that front it was as expected. I am deliberately not outing them since they are , as I said, a small company of local amateur actors and it seems a bit mean to do so.

However, leaving aside discussions of whether non Jews should play Jews, and how this should be done, what really bothered me was this little paragraph by the host theatre in the programme- hopefully attached.

I assume they are referring to Gaza rather than Ukraine - it very much sounds to me like they are apologising for putting on a play about Jewish people and probably wouldn’t have done so if they'd chosen their play after Oct 7th. That's my reading of it, anyway - although it is remarkable for what it doesn't say, raising more questions than it answers.

What are your thoughts? It's possible that the current backdrop, as they call it, has made me a bit oversensitive. That said, DH (not Jewish) immediately said, "Of course they mean Gaza" when he read it.

Sorry, what? At the most generous interpretation, they could mean the rampant antisemitism worldwide, but they've been much too vague. You're right - they're apologising for doing something Jewish. Will you write to ask for clarification?

I'm.glad it's not just me! I wasn't going to write but maybe I should.

Please do - we need to stand up for ourselves!

Yeah that's definitely coming across badly 😳 Please let us know their response if you write to them.

I think for most of us we're seeing relentless reports of antisemitism that we haven't seen in our own lifetime so we're on high alert and nervous, but I'm finding it hard to read any other way than 'we realise Jews are contentious just now so we're sorry to show this, but "that said" it would be a shame to let our hard work go to waste'. But it's so ambiguous about what "raising awareness" refers to, likely intentionally so, that I could be absolutely wide of the mark!

If you do write to them, would be good to hear their response.

'we realise Jews are contentious just now so we're sorry to show this, but "that said" it would be a shame to let our hard work go to waste'.

This is how I read that too. They could have made a relevant link between the pogroms and 7/10, however they went with Gaza. Actually those weaselly apologetic words have made me irrationally annoyed.

Thanks all for confirming that I'm not seeing things. Lots going on for me right now but contacting them is on my list of things I hope to get round to doing - if I get a reply I'll let you know.

I absolutely despise this expectation that Jewish people should be collectively apologetic for the actions of Israel.
this is really unacceptable

lets Turn this around and see how it feels

If the local amdram were doing the play
For A Palestinian
and in the programme it also said - ‘reminded of the relevance of such a piece amidst the backdrop of current events ‘ .

How would it feel
Is it a warning, is it a negative comment on Palestinians.
If I saw it in isolation I’d say yes but looking at it from both perspectives ie OPs as well then I’d say it’s saying

We appreciate a lot of people are invested in the current events, yes we appreciate this is a play about Jewish people ( OP ) Palestinians ( other ) we have worked hard and tried to be sensitive.

However
If you find the comment insensitive or your just not sure why it has been made then yes p, of course, it’s worth asking the amdram society.

It’s also worth noting, as I’m still awake 🥲that @yamuvva makes a good point that
Whilst Fiddler on the Roof is a play about a Jewish family in TelAviv that actually has nothing to do with ‘the current situation in Gaza’.
That situation is to do with the Israeli Government and not the Jewish people as a collective.

Just to clarify - Fiddler on the Roof is set in a village in Russia, not Tel Aviv. The story features a pogrom and ultimately all Jews are told to leave their village by the Russian authorities. The only mention of Israel is one character right at the end, when they have all been expelled from their village, saying that she thinks she will go to the Holy Land. Everyone else goes elsewhere in Europe.

So it has LITERALLY nothing to do with Gaza.

Not sure if I'm missing your point here, GPAC, but Fiddler is set in Russia... The difference is that Jews and Jewish culture have existed and exist fruitfully all around the world, away from Israel. Palestinian culture does not in the same way. So the flip really doesn't work.

That said, reading it again, it actually could be relating the pogroms of then with 7/10. I don't read it in the same way anymore.

Oh and i forgot, someone else goes to New York. It is very much the history of the Jewish diaspora around the turn of the century, fuelled by pogroms and antisemitism.

I apologise for the location confusion……..maybe that’s where I saw it then???

See above post. Think I got confused with where I saw it.

Ps.
The flip works once it’s accepted that not everyone has an in-depth knowledge of Jewish history, it’s not taught to any great extent in non Jewish uk schools except for the holocaust during WW2. So this could easily be how an amdram society see it.

I suppose I see the play as being put on with the best on intentions by people who are not Jewish and have misunderstood how their words could be taken.

I dunno @GivePeaceAChance I think that ignorance is a pretty shabby excuse. Imagine putting on a play about...well, any other ethnic minority and not bothering to do a bit of reading about their history and why the play was written in the first place. And then apologising because some people might be offended about the very sight of a play about that ethnic group (which was mainly performed by white people from, say, rural Lincolnshire) due to the actions of a government in another country with shared ethnicity.

#jewsdontcount in action here.

I think the programme message is a plea for no anti Israel protests by the audience.

Tbh I’m surprised you didn’t say something at the time.
I would have liked clarity on the comment but as you say it’s a small local production so may not have been appropriate at the time.
Worth speaking / writing to them though.

Not sure who I would have spoken to on the day! Someone selling ice creams?!?!

🤣🤣🤣
well I suppose they’d have known who was in charge
and who knows maybe the ice cream seller was multi tasking
🤪🤯

I think it’s fine to not ask on the day when it’s an AmDram production run largely by volunteers. A carefully worded enquiry is definitely better after the fact

👍

In all seriousness, I read it and thought wtf but wanted to ask my non Jewish DH (who wasn't with me) what he thought. Deep down I had a little voice saying don't be so silly and I needed someone else to look (I was there with a load of young teens and other group leaders and wouldn't have asked them, not least because my own young teen would have died of embarrassment) and tell me I wasn't seeing things that weren't there.