Fiddler's Urgent Warning for Jews

This Jewish-themed Broadway musical is not just a tragedy. It's a warning — one many Jews keep ignoring.

A father and his son pray at the Kotel (the Western Wall) in Jerusalem. (photo: Anton Mislawsky/Unsplash)

Please consider supporting our mission to help everyone better understand and become smarter about the Jewish world. A gift of any amount helps keep our platform free of advertising and accessible to all.

---

This is a guest essay written by Sam Mitzmann, who writes the newsletter, “Still Jewish.”

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

---

A lot of us grew up with “Fiddler on the Roof.”¹

Singing. Dancing. “Tradition!”

It felt like our story. A warm, nostalgic picture of the old country. The town matchmaker. A daughter dreaming of a simple life. A wedding where the whole shtetl shows up. Familiar songs. Familiar struggles. A community trying to hold itself together.

For many, that image still feels beautiful. For others, it’s tinged with something harder. Because we know how it ends. The town is emptied. Families are scattered. And most people walk away thinking: That’s just what happened to our people. Tragic, yes — yet inevitable.

But what if it wasn’t? What if the unraveling didn’t begin with the pogrom? What if the collapse — of family, of faith, of community — was already in motion from the start? And what if it could’ve been stopped? What does Tevye really stand for?

Tevye shouts “Tradition!” like it’s the answer to everything. But when you really look at his life, what is he actually building?

He sings. He dances. He jokes with God. But it’s not joy. It’s habit. It’s survival. He clings to melody like a man shielding himself from truth. He says that if he were rich, he’d finally sit and study.

But there’s no learning. No clarity. No vision.

“If I were a rich man…” isn’t a goal. It’s an escape — from asking the hard questions. When his horse goes lame, he straps himself in and pulls the wagon. That’s resilience. At first.

But weeks later, he’s still dragging it. Still stuck. Surviving instead of solving. Even when he’s warned about an upcoming pogrom, he does nothing. That’s Tevye’s pattern. Don’t fix the system. Just absorb the pain. Don’t rethink the plan. Just keep moving and hope it works out.

But pain without direction doesn’t make us strong. It wears us down. The daughters didn’t just drift; they learned from what wasn’t taught. Tzeitel. Hodel. Chava.

One daughter wanted love — with a good man. Hardworking. Humble. Ambitious. Tevye resists, not out of principle, but fear. An old widowed butcher offered security, so Tevye nearly gave up his daughter’s future for the illusion of safety.

One daughter followed a revolutionary. A boy full of passion. Fire. Big words about justice. But where was it all headed? What was it rooted in?

It’s a classic mistake Jews have made for generations: trying to fix the world without staying grounded in who we are. He had spirit — but no roots. He knew what he wanted to tear down, but not what was worth preserving.

And one daughter went further: marrying outside the faith, under a cross.

At each step, Tevye bends. Not out of compassion, but out of confusion. He doesn’t know what’s worth holding onto — and what can change. He mistakes fear for wisdom, tradition for truth. And by the end, everything is gone. Not just because of exile. Because nothing was holding them up anymore. Like a tree that still looks tall, but is rotting from within. It only takes one hard wind — and it all falls down.

It didn’t start with the pogrom. And it doesn’t end with the story.

There’s a deeper pattern here, one we still live: First the spiritual foundation weakens, then the cultural bonds unravel, then the physical safety crumbles. That’s not superstition. That’s history. Again and again.

When a people forget who they are, they don’t last long. Sound familiar?

We still do this. We sing the songs, celebrate the holidays, tell stories. But too often, we don’t ask what any of it really means. It feels Jewish, but it doesn’t build anything. What starts as tradition becomes nostalgia. And what we pass down gets lighter every time.

It’s not enough to feel Jewish. We have to live Jewish. Today, we have everything Tevye longed for: freedom, comfort, opportunity. No pogroms. No exile. No one forcing us to hide who we are.

But if we don’t pass down something more — real Jewish meaning, real structure, real clarity — then we’re building on sand.

For many, Judaism has become cultural wallpaper. What some might call Seinfeld Judaism. Funny. Familiar. Even comforting. But emptied of purpose. If all our kids inherit is irony, bagels with lox, and a couple of holidays, should we really be surprised when it fades?

At some point, we have to ask: Is this what we want to give our children? A culture of memory — or a life of meaning?

Tevye didn’t fail because he didn’t love his kids. He failed because he didn’t educate them. He trusted the culture to carry it all. Trusted tradition to hold on without explanation. He gave an unanchored revolutionary a platform to teach, and never asked what was taught. He let someone else shape his daughter’s mind, and never checked what she was learning.

That wasn’t just a small mistake. That was his whole job. His wife was no different. She meant well, but her parenting came down to chores, marriage pressure, and yelling from the kitchen. Plenty of activity. No guidance.

And their daughters? They learned plenty, just not from their parents. That’s the quiet danger we still face. Our kids are always learning from their friends, from their schools, from their screens, from a culture that constantly reshapes values. The question isn’t: Are they learning? It’s: From whom?

Jewish education isn’t just about information; it’s about formation. It’s the foundation that helps a child know who they are, before the world tells them who to be. The early years matter most: preschool, elementary school. That’s when identity forms. That’s when everything sticks. That’s when they decide: Is Judaism something I am, or just something my parents were?

But wherever you are, it’s not too late to grow. Because your kids aren’t just listening to what you say; they’re watching what you choose, what you prioritize, what you live. They may not always listen to your words, but they become what you model, so show them something real to become.

Not just tradition to quote, but a future to live, a life with meaning, a family with direction. If you want strong Jewish children, build a strong Jewish life. And let them grow up inside it.

P.S. If your child is in preschool or elementary school, this is the moment; the years when identity forms, everything sticks, and you get to shape the foundation of who they are, and who they’ll become. The earlier you start, the stronger the foundation.

This time, we’re not waiting for the roof to fall. We have a chance to rebuild — with strength, with clarity, and with love. Start now, while the foundation is still yours to shape.

---

1. A Broadway musical, film, and a popular story about Tevye the milkman and his family in a Russian shtetl