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How the late actor Topol turned Tevye into a Zionist
(JTA) — If you were born anytime before, say, 1975, you might remember Israel not as a source of angst and tension among American Jews but as a cause for celebration. In the 1960s and ’70s, most Jews embraced as gospel the heroic version of Israel’s founding depicted in Leon Uris’ 1958 novel “Exodus” and the 1960 movie version. The1961 Broadway musical “Milk and Honey,” about American tourists set loose in Israel, ran for over 500 performances. And that was before Israel’s lightning victory in the Six-Day War turned even fence-sitting suburban Jews into passionate Zionists.
That was the mood when the film version of “Fiddler on the Roof” came out in 1971. The musical had already been a smash hit on Broadway, riding a wave of nostalgia by Jewish audiences and an embrace of ethnic particularism by the mainstream. The part of Tevye, the put-upon patriarch of a Jewish family in a “small village in Russia,” was originated on Broadway by Zero Mostel, a Brooklyn-born actor who grew up in a Yiddish-speaking home. Ashkenazi American Jews tended to think of “Fiddler” as family history — what Alisa Solomon, author of the 2013 book “Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof,” describes as the “Jewish American origin story.”
But Mostel didn’t star in the film, which landed in theaters while the afterglow of Israel’s victory in its second major war of survival had yet to fade. Famously – or notoriously – the part went to Chaim Topol, a young Israeli actor unknown outside of Israel except for his turns in the London productions of “Fiddler.” With an Israeli in the lead, a musical about the perils and dilemmas of Diaspora became a film about Zionism. When Topol played Tevye in London, Solomon writes,“‘Fiddler’ became a site for celebration, drawing Jews as well as gentiles to the theater — some for repeat viewings — to bask in Jewish perseverance and to pay homage to Jewish survival. The show didn’t change, but the atmosphere around it did.”
Topol died this week at 87, still best known as Tevye, and his death reminded me of the ways “Fiddler” is — and isn’t — Zionist. When Tevye and his fellow villagers are forced out of Anatevke by the czarist police, they head for New York, Chicago and Krakow. Only Yente, the matchmaker, declares that she is going to the “Holy Land.” Perchik, the presumably socialist revolutionary who marries one of Tevye’s daughters, wants to transform Russian society and doesn’t say a word about the political Zionists who sought to create a workers’ utopia in Palestine.
“There is nothing explicitly or even to my mind implicitly Zionist about it,” Solomon told me a few years back. And yet, she said, “any story of Jewish persecution becomes from a Zionist perspective a Zionist story.”
When the Israeli Mission to the United Nations hosted a performance of the Broadway revival of “Fiddler” in 2016, that was certainly the perspective of then-Ambassador Dani Danon. Watching the musical, he said, he couldn’t help thinking, “What if they had a place to go [and the Jews of Anatevke could] live as a free people in their own land? The whole play could have been quite different.”
Israelis always had a complicated relationship with “Fiddler,” Solomon told me. The first Hebrew production was brought to Israel in 1965 by impresario Giora Godik. American Jews were enthralled by its resurrection of Yiddishkeit, the Ashkenazi folk culture that their parents and grandparents had left behind and the Holocaust had all but erased. Israelis were less inclined to celebrate the “Old Country.”
“Israelis were — what? — not exactly ashamed or hostile, but the Zionist enterprise was about moving away from that to become ‘muscle Jews,’ and even denouncing the stereotype of the pasty, weakling Eastern European Jews,” said Solomon, warning that she was generalizing.
That notion of the “muscle Jew” is echoed in a review of Topol’s performance by New Yorker critic Pauline Kael, who wrote that he is “a rough presence, masculine, with burly, raw strength, but also sensual and warm. He’s a poor man but he’s not a little man, he’s a big man brought low — a man of Old Testament size brought down by the circumstances of oppression.”
From left: Maria Karnilova, Tanya Everett, Zero Mostel, Julia Migenes and Joanna Merlin backstage at opening night of “Fiddler on the Roof” at the Imperial Theater in New York City, Sept. 22, 1964. (AP/Courtesy of Roadside Attractions and Samuel Goldwyn Films)
Mostel, by contrast, was plump, sweaty and vaudevillian — a very different kind of masculinity. The congrast between the two Tevyes shows up in, of all places, a parody of “Fiddler” in Mad magazine. In that 1976 comic, Mostel’s Tevye is reimagined as a neurotic, nouveau riche suburban American Jew with a comb-over, spoiled hippy children and a “spendthrift” wife; Topol’s Tevye arrives in a dream to blame his descendants for turning their backs on tradition and turning America into a shallow, consumerist wasteland. A kibbutznik couldn’t have said (or sung) it better.
Composer Jerry Bock, lyricist Sheldon Harnick and book writer Joseph Stein set out to write a hit musical, not a political statement. But others have always shaped “Fiddler” to their needs.
In the original script, Yente tells Tevye’s wife Golde, “I’m going to the Holy Land to help our people increase and multiply. It’s my mission.” In a 2004 Broadway revival, staged in the middle of the second intifada, the “increase and multiply” line was excised. In a review of Solomon’s “Wonder of Wonders,” Edward Shapiro conjectured that the producers of the revival didn’t want Yente to be seen as “a soldier in the demographic war between Jews and Arabs.”
Topol himself connected “Fiddler” to Israel as part of one long thread that led from Masada — the Judean fortress where rebellious Jewish forces fell to the Romans in the first century CE — through Russia and eventually to Tel Aviv. “My grandfather was a sort of Tevye, and my father was a son of Tevye,” Topol told The New York Times in 1971. “My grandfather was a Russian Jew and my father was born in Russia, south of Kiev. So I knew of the big disappointment with the [Russian] Revolution, and the Dreyfus trial in France, and the man with the little mustache on his upper lip, the creation of the state of Israel and ‘Masada will never fall again.’ It’s the grandchildren now who say that. It’s all one line — it comes from Masada 2,000 years ago, and this Tevye of mine already carries in him the chromosomes of those grandchildren.”
The recent all-Yiddish version of “Fiddler on the Roof” — a Yiddish translation of an English-language musical based on English translations of Yiddish short stories — readjusted that valence, returning “Fiddler” solidly to the Old Country. It arrived at a time when surveys suggested that Jews 50 and older are much more emotionally attached to Israel than are younger Jews. For decades, “Exodus”-style devotion to Israel and its close corollary — Holocaust remembrance — were the essence of American Jewish identity. Among younger generations with no first-hand memories of its founding or victory in the 1967 war, that automatic connection faded.
Meanwhile, as Israeli politics have shifted well to the right, engaged liberal Jews have rediscovered the allure of pre-Holocaust, pre-1948, decidedly leftist Eastern European Jewish culture. A left-wing magazine like Jewish Currents looks to the socialist politics and anti-Zionism of the Jewish Labor Bund; symposiums on Yiddish-speaking anarchists and Yiddish-language classes draw surprisingly young audiences. A Yiddish “Fiddler” fits this nostalgia for the shtetl (as does the “Fiddler” homage in the brand-new “History of the World, Part II,” which celebrates the real-life radical Fanny Kaplan, a Ukrainian Jew who tried to assassinate Lenin).
Topol’s Tevye was an Israeli Tevye: young, manly, with a Hebrew accent. Mostel’s Tevye was an American Tevye: heimish, New York-y, steeped in Yiddishkeit. It’s a testament to the show’s enduring appeal — and the multitudes contained within Jewish identity — that both performances are beloved.
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Miss Israel Melanie Shiraz Says Mamdani’s Wife Snubbed Her Because She’s From Jewish State
Melanie Shiraz being crowned Miss Israel 2025. Photo: Simon Soong | Edgar Entertainment
Melanie Shiraz, who represented Israel in the 2025 Miss Universe pageant, said on Wednesday that the wife of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani refused to take a photograph with her because the beauty queen is from the Jewish state.
Shiraz posted on Instagram a video that features a short clip of herself with Rama Duwaji, the first lady of New York City. The Israel native said in the video’s voice-over that she met Mamdani’s wife by chance in a coffee shop in New York City and the two sat next to each other. Duwaji was willing to take a photo with the beauty queen “until she found out that I was Miss Israel; until I told her that as an Israeli, I was disappointed in seeing the kind of rhetoric she was promoting online,” Shiraz said.
“I told her as part of my ideology as an Israeli is to have productive dialogue in which not one side is constantly dehumanized. But despite that, despite the setting being calm, the moment she found out I was Israeli, she refused to have a conversation with me,” continued the graduate of the University of California, Berkeley.
“If you can publicly apologize for dehumanizing Israelis, but you can’t get yourself to humanize one when you come face-to-face with them in real life, what does that say about you and what does that say about the state of our politics considering that is the wife of the mayor of New York City?” Shiraz added.
A Texas-born illustrator with Syrian roots, Duwaji has previously uploaded or “liked” numerous anti-Israel posts on social media. She has also “liked” several online posts that celebrated the deadly Hamas-led terrorist attack against Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, and even defended the largest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, describing it as Palestinian “resistance.”
It was discovered that Duwaji shared social media posts praising female Palestinian terrorists who participated in plane hijackings and bombings in the 1960s and early 1970s. In 2015, she shared a post in which someone else wrote that Tel Aviv was occupying Palestinian land and “shouldn’t exist.” Duwaji also illustrated an essay co-edited by a Palestinian-American activist author who described the Oct. 7 attack as “spectacular” and called Jewish Israelis “rootless soulless ghouls.”
In April, Duwaji apologized for “harmful” social media posts she made as a teenager, which included anti-gay and anti-Black language, but did not directly address her more recent anti-Israel social media activity.
Mamdani, who has faced his own share of criticism for anti-Israel comments and actions, has previously defended his wife by saying she is a “private person.”
In the caption of her Instagram video, Shiraz said she was “not particularly” surprised by her interaction with Duwaji at the coffee shop in New York City.
“It is easy to apologize without meaningfully changing one’s behavior,” Shiraz explained. “It is easy to claim opposition to dehumanization in principle, but far more difficult to embody that in practice. She was polite throughout. But the shift in demeanor was evident, and the lack of willingness to engage even more so.”
“I approached the interaction with openness to a genuine, respectful conversation. That openness was not reciprocated,” Shiraz added. “And that, perhaps, is the more telling point: how often this disconnect appears, and how normalized it has become.”
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Rubio Questions Allies’ Support on Iran Following Italy Talks
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks to the press at the US Embassy in Rome, Italy on May 8, 2026. Photo: STEFANO RELLANDINI/Pool via REUTERS
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Friday and afterwards questioned why allies including Italy were not backing Washington’s efforts to confront Iran and re-open the Strait of Hormuz.
“I don’t understand why anybody would not be supportive,” Rubio told reporters, adding that countries needed “something more than just strongly worded statements” if they opposed Iran‘s actions.
Rubio was wrapping up a two-day trip aimed at easing ties with Pope Leo after attacks on the pontiff by President Donald Trump, while also addressing Washington’s frustration over Italy‘s refusal to support the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Meloni had been one of Trump’s firmest allies in Europe, cultivating close ties with him and presenting herself as a natural bridge between Washington and other EU states that had no natural political affinity with the Republican US leader.
But that alignment has come under increasing strain in recent months, as the Iran war has forced her to balance loyalty to the United States against Italian public animosity to the war and the growing economic cost of the conflict.
Meloni and Rubio met for 1-1/2 hours, in what she described in a post on social media platform X as “an extensive and constructive discussion,” saying the talks included the Middle East, Libya, and the peace processes in Lebanon and Ukraine.
“It was a frank dialogue between allies who defend their own national interests while fully recognizing the value of western unity,” Meloni said.
Rubio declined to give full details. However, he warned that Tehran’s claim to control access to Hormuz risked setting a dangerous precedent.
“The fundamental question every country, not just Italy … needs to ask themselves is, are you going to normalize a country claiming to control an international waterway? Because if you normalize that, you’ve set a precedent that’s going to get repeated in a dozen other places,” he said.
‘THE UNITED STATES NEEDS EUROPE AND ITALY‘
Italy and other European allies have said they would be willing to help keep the strait open once there was a lasting ceasefire or the conflict ends, but have refused to be drawn into direct confrontation with Iran.
Before seeing Meloni, Rubio met Italy‘s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who said he hoped the visit had helped calm tensions with the United States.
“I am convinced Europe needs America, Italy needs America, but also that the United States needs Europe and Italy,” Tajani told reporters.
Besides the war in the Gulf, Meloni and Rubio had also been expected to discuss Russia’s war on Ukraine, US tariffs on European goods, and the outlook for Cuba, which Washington is seeking to isolate both diplomatically and economically.
The Italians were also keen for a readout on Rubio‘s meetings at the Vatican. Trump’s recent attacks on Pope Leo crossed a sensitive line in overwhelmingly Catholic Italy and prompted Meloni to call them “unacceptable.”
Her criticism in turn drew a sharp rebuke from Trump, who said she lacked courage. He subsequently threatened to withdraw US troops from Italy.
Rubio said he didn’t get into specifics about US bases, saying it was a decision for Trump to make.
Italy last month refused to allow US aircraft to use the Sigonella air base in Sicily for combat operations linked to the Iran conflict. Italian officials said Washington had not sought prior authorization from Rome for the use of the site.
Rubio did not mention this incident, but pointed to Spain’s decision not to allow its bases or airspace to be used to attack Iran. He said one of the main attractions of NATO for the US was to have forces in Europe that could be swiftly deployed elsewhere.
“Now that’s no longer the case, at least when it comes to some NATO members, that’s a problem and has to be examined,” he said.
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Irish Soccer Players, Sports Icons, Celebrities Call for Boycott of Upcoming UEFA Matches Against Israel
Soccer Football – UEFA Nations League Draw – Brussels Expo, Brussels, Belgium – Feb. 12, 2026, General view during the draw. Photo: REUTERS/Benoit Tessier
Prominent Irish soccer players, as well as other well-known sports figures and celebrities, have teamed up to pressure the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) to boycott two UEFA Nations League matches against Israel set for later this year.
The campaign group Irish Sport for Palestine published an open letter this week regarding a match set for Sept. 27, designated as an Israeli home match, and another future one on Oct. 4 in which Ireland will host Israel at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium.
The Israel Football Association said in February it hopes to host the Sept. 27 match in Israel, but a formal decision will reportedly be made in June.
The open letter calls for FAI to boycott both upcoming matches while accusing Israel of a “brutal system of apartheid,” committing “genocide” in the Gaza Strip, and carrying out “clear and ongoing breaches” of UEFA and FIFA statutes regarding Israeli soccer teams playing matches “on occupied Palestinian lands.”
“It is unconceivable that we would be willing to be silent and give cover to such crimes in the name of football,” the letter states. “We call on you to ensure the Irish football team is not used to mask UEFA rules breaches, apartheid, and war crimes.”
The letter was signed by players from both the men’s and women’s League of Ireland soccer teams, Ireland’s former men’s national team manager Brian Kerr, two-time women’s player of the year Louise Quinn, and other former soccer coaches, managers, and players.
Outside of the sporting world, the letter was also signed by Irish rock band Fontaines DC, the Irish hip-hop trio Kneecap, Irish musicians Mary Coughlan and Christy Moore, and Oscar-nominated Irish actor Stephen Rea, among others.
Included in the open letter is a statement from Shamrock Rovers captain and Professional Footballers’ Association of Ireland Chairman Roberto Lopes, who was born in Dublin.
“We can’t ignore the humanitarian catastrophe in Palestine; the sheer loss of life there has to take precedence over any sporting consideration,” Lopes said. “Ireland has an opportunity here to lead — to be a pioneer and do what others won’t. We need to be brave enough to say enough is enough. We can’t just stand by. Please, stop the game.”
The matchups for the 2026-27 UEFA Nations League were announced in February. At the time, the FAI said Ireland’s men’s national team will indeed compete against Israel in the scheduled games to avoid facing “disciplinary measures” by the UEFA, which may include “potential disqualification” from the competition. Months earlier, in late 2025, the FAI submitted a motion to have the UEFA ban Israel from competitions because of the country’s war in Gaza. The motions were rejected.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino previously said he believes FIFA “should actually never ban any country” from playing soccer “because of the acts of their political leaders.”
Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said he supports Ireland playing the two matches against Israel in September and October.
“We have been critics and have opposed very strongly Israeli government policy within Gaza in particular. We condemned the Hamas attack on Israel which was absolutely horrific,” he told the Irish Times. “I think sport is an area that can be challenging when it crosses into the realm of politics.”