Last summer, Battery Park was busier than usual on July 4 th . In addition to the crowds who had come to see fireworks explode around Lady Liberty, all the lights were also on at the Museum of Jewish Heritage (MJH). Manhattan luminaries, arriving in limousines and via car services, were there for the opening night of the first American production of the Yiddish version of Fiddler on the Roof.
Two weeks ago, after extending its original run several times, the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene’s production moved to Stage 42 (an Off-Broadway theatre on 42 nd Street). Much to the amazement of sceptics everywhere, the Folksbiene (housed at MJH) had taken Shraga Friedman’s adaptation—which had played for about a year in Tel Aviv way back in 1965—and transformed it into a local phenomenon. Over and over again, critics have applauded its “authenticity.” According to Jesse Green’s review in the New Yor
I saw the Folksbiene’s production at Battery Park twice, once with friends on July 5 th just to enjoy and once by myself a few weeks later to fact check. The second time I went, I was sitting next to an exuberant “baby boomer” from New Jersey. When she came back from the ladies room at the end of the intermission, she told me she loved it. When I asked her why, she said it was “so authentic” in Yiddish. “Do you think Les Miz would be better in French?” I asked. Luckily, the music cue saved me from her angry