“Fiddler on the Roof” Reflects Universal Themes Applicable to Our Troubled Times

Discover how this timeless musical mirrors today’s struggles with identity, tradition, and societal change.

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For most of my life, I have considered that the Broadway musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” which was transformed into a motion picture, captured not only the realities and conditions within a small Jewish village amidst the uncertainty and turmoil of the Russian monarchy and hostile Russian gentile citizenry, but that it also captured several universal themes of the larger human condition regardless of background or location.

These themes include issue of family, traditions, identity, faith, love, charity, community, enmity, fear, repression, joy, loss, intergenerational continuance and change, migration, connection and separation, hopes and dreams, resignation, and the precariousness of life and the tenuous illusion of control and balance just like “a fiddler on the roof.”

Each of the songs and production numbers advance the plot as well as the universal topics they represent.

The opening number, “Tradition,” highlights the importance of the village of Anatevka and its residents’ Jewish traditions, which act like…