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Tevye (Yiddish: טבֿיה דער מילכיקער) is the protagonist of several of Sholem Aleichem's stories, originally written in Yiddish and first published in 1894. The character became best known from the fictional memoir Tevye and his Daughters (also called Tevye the Milkman or Tevye the Dairyman), about a pious Jewish milkman in Tsarist Russia, and the troubles he has with his six daughters: Tzeitel, Hodel, Chava, Shprintze, Bielke, and Teibel, as well as from the musical dramatic adaptation Fiddler on the Roof. (In the first short story, there is also a mention of a seventh daughter; in Fiddler, however, there are only five daughters, of which only three have major roles.)

The story was adapted for stage and film several times, including several Yiddish-language musicals. Most famously, it was adapted as the Broadway musical and later film versions of Fiddler on the Roof. The original Broadway musical was based on a play written by Arnold Perl called "Tevye and his Daughters," based on Shalom Aleichem's story, "Tevye the Milkman."

Tevye is both a tragic and a comic figure. By the end of each story, he has always experienced a mix of good and bad fortune. In good times he befriends the same gentile neighbors who assail him in bad times. Barely in the middle class himself, he is often mildly disdainful of those with a lesser social position. He sees himself through hard times by a quiet resignation and by recalling Talmudic or biblical quotations, usually rather garbled, and he is always true to his generous heart, even when reason tells him to do otherwise.

Aleichem chose to take the role of Tevye's listener, ostensibly serving simply as the scribe of the dairyman's many tales of woe. In an essay in The Jewish Reader, Philip Graubart compares Tevye to the narrator of Samuel Coleridge's poem "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," saying: "Like the Ancient Mariner, Tevye the Dairyman grabs a listener - in his case, his creator, Sholem Aleichem - and tells a tale. The comparison may seem strange; unlike the Coleridge character, Tevye is funny, warm, learned, earthy, and hopeful. Still, both the Ancient Mariner and Tevye tell stories of ruin: the Mariner, of his ship; Tevye, first, of all the assumptions that sustain his world, and then of the world itself."^[1]

Zero Mostel and Chaim Topol are the two actors most associated with the role of Tevye. Mostel and Topol, both of whom had long played the role onstage, fought over the lead in the 1971 film version of Fiddler. The part ultimately went to Topol, as producer-director Norman Jewison felt that Mostel's portrayal was too broadly comic.^[2]

Tevye is also the name of a 1939 film adaptation of Sholem Aleichem's story.

• Fiddler on the Roof
• To life

1. ^ National Yiddish Book Center: Tevye the Dairyman
2. ^ Fiddler on the Roof at Colossus.net

• Liptzin, Sol, A History of Yiddish Literature, Jonathan David Publishers, Middle Village, NY, 1972, ISBN 0-8246-0124-6. 68-70.

• Tevye the Milkman at the Internet Movie Database
• Tevye and His Seven Daughters at the Internet Movie Database

(German TV movie)

• Fiddler on the Roof at the Internet Movie Database
• Fiddler on the Roof at The Internet Broadway Database