![]() Calling attention to their Jewishness, they feared, might trigger more antisemitism. The Rosenbergs' execution in 1953 still darkened their spirits, and the echoes of Joseph McCarthy's antisemitic committees still rang in their ears. Less than two decades had passed since the liberation of Jews from Nazi death camps. ![]() On the one hand, Jews knew they were outsiders. In the early 1960s, the Jewish American soul was tied in knots. Matthew Weiner on "Mad Men" and the Jewish experience: "It's the same story as Don's identity" They were speaking to the heart of contemporary American Jewry. Harnick, Stein, and Jerry Bock, the show's composer, weren't trying to depict history. Their scholarly kvetches aren't wrong, technically, but they miss the point. In later years, Jewish studies professors have been less kind, complaining that Harnick's lyrics and Joseph Stein's book sentimentally sanitized the shtetl and misrepresented both Judaism and eastern European life. "Fiddler" was an instant hit, beloved on both stage and screen. Instead, Jewish pride gave rise to popular entertainment: Mel Brooks' movies, Lenny Bruce's stand-up and "Fiddler on the Roof." While most pride movements fought internalized oppression through parades, art, fashion and music - think of James Brown's "Say It Loud–I'm Black and I'm Proud" and Helen Reddy's "I am Woman" - Jews in the '60s didn't hold Rosh Hashanah rallies or wear Passover pins. Untangling that knot is how "Fiddler" managed to enthrall Jewish Americans.
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