arts & culture
‘Fiddler’ Documentary
Celebrates Jewish Goy
JARRAD SAFFREN | STAFF WRITER
“F iddler’s Journey to the Big
Screen” is a documentary
about the non-Jewish fi lm
director, Norman Jewison, who turned
the classic story and play, “Fiddler on the
Roof,” into an Oscar-winning movie.

In our simplistic culture of today,
Jewison’s role might have risen to the
level of controversy. Th ere might have
been a social media cycle about how
the director was “appropriating” Jewish
culture. Or, if there wasn’t, someone like
Sarah Silverman probably would have
argued that there should have been.

“Fiddler’s Journey to the Big Screen,”
though, is a 2022 documentary out on
Amazon Prime that dares to celebrate
Jewison for his celebration of the Jewish
people. And make no mistake: Th e man
deserves to be celebrated. What the
director did, as the doc’s director Daniel
Raim shows by focusing on Jewison
as his primary subject, was bring the
Sholem Aleichem story and Joseph Stein
play to a mass audience.

Chaim Topol, the actor who plays the
main character Tevye in the 1971 fi lm,
From left: Chaim Topol and Norman Jewison brought “Fiddler on the Roof”
to the silver screen in 1971.

Courtesy of Zeitgeist Films
explains to Raim at one point that more
than 1 billion people saw “Fiddler on
the Roof.” Th e adaptation made more
than $80 million at the box offi ce and
received eight Oscar nominations.

Its power, as several people explain
in “Fiddler’s Journey,” is in its ability to
both explain Jewish culture and capture
timeless themes. Tevye is a classic Jewish
shtetl character; he’s committed to tradi-
tion, he maintains a dialogue with God
and he’s concerned about the wellbeing
of his daughters. At the same time, he’s
a character that any parent can relate to.

As the song “Sunrise, Sunset” portrays in
moving fashion, it’s hard when your kids
get old, when you have to let them go
and when you grow to understand that
everything is ephemeral.

As a non-Jewish artist who appreci-
ated Jewish culture, Jewison saw and
understood that duality. He was also
able to convey it through an art form,
movies, built for an audience of all reli-
gions. He was just the man for this job.

Raim, a documentary fi lmmaker who
was born in Israel, interviewed several
other people involved in the making of
this classic, including Topol. But while
they all add a lot, this story is about
Jewison, whose story starts, fi nishes and
forms the spine of the 88-minute movie.

When he was a boy, the director’s
classmates in Toronto mistook him for
being Jewish due to his last name. Aft er
guiding the Oscar-winning “In the Heat
of the Night” in 1967, Jewison got the
chance to helm “Fiddler.” But he was
worried that the studio executives were
making the same mistake his classmates
once made. So, he told them he was a
goy. Th ey said that was why they wanted
him. Th ey felt he could transcend the
Jewish audience of the story and play,
both of which were written by Jews.

Raim then implies that the success of
“Fiddler” made Jewison feel a sense of
pride in his adopted identity. Over the
rest of the fi lm, Jewison recounts a story
of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir
wiping away a tear during a screening
and of a later visit to the father of mod-
ern Israel, David Ben-Gurion, who tells
him that anyone “crazy enough to want
to be Jewish” is. Finally, late in the docu-
mentary, Raim shows footage of Jewison
winning a lifetime achievement award
at the 1999 Oscars. He gets up on stage
and says, “Not bad for a goy.”
Truer words have nary been spoken
in the history of Jewish fi lm. Th ey
could have formed the doc’s tagline. JE
jsaff ren@midatlanticmedia.com
18 JUNE 23, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM