Tevye

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This article is about the short stories. For the 1939 film, see Tevye (film).

Tevye is the protagonist of several of Sholom 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, about a pious Jewish milkman in Tsarist Russia, and the troubles he has with his six daughters: Tzeitel, Hodel, Chava, Shprintze, Bielke, and Teibel. (In the first story, there is also a mention of a seventh daughter.) 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 Fiddler on the Roof (but in "Fiddler," Tevye has only five daughters).

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.

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. [1]

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