Fiddler: A Miracle Of Miracles (2019)

How did the most famous Jewish musical about a poor old milkman from a shtetl manage to capture the hearts of millions? Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles will help to answer this question by showing archival footage and the complicated story of the musical’s creation. Fiddler on the Roof is known all around the world; its plot about an elderly milkman, who is trying to successfully marry off his willful daughters, became an overnight success, and the aesthetics of a small community where everyone knows each other has largely defined the identity of the Jewish art. The play was named after the famous painting by Marc Chagall and written based on the stories about Tevye the Dairyman by the great Jewish writer Sholem Aleichem. It premiered on Broadway in 1964 and became a lasting hit – the musical was performed 3242 times and received nine Tony Awards. In 1971 the film adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof came out, dedicated for the most part to the theme of antisemitism. Chaim Topol played the Ukrainian milkman whose village Anatevka turned out to be outside the Pale of Settlement, and the film received eight Academy Awards nominations and won three of them.