Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness

Hour 2

Writer and playwright Sholem Aleichem (Shalom Rabinovitz) is considered one of the great, modern Jewish writers who wrote in Yiddish, spinning secular stories using universal themes of unrelenting change, propelled by the Industrial Revolution, conflicting with the continuum of keeping old world traditions as the Jewish Diaspora was growing wider. Born in a Ukraine shtetl, his secular stories of Eastern European Jewish life, particularly his series of essays about Tevye the Dairyman, became the basis of the 1964 Broadway musical, “Fiddler on the Roof.” Our guest, JOSEPH DORMAN, produced, directed and wrote the upcoming film, “Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness,” which opens at the Ritz at the Bourse in September. We’ll also be joined by Harvard University Yiddish scholar, RUTH WISSE.

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[audio: 082211_110630.mp3]