Showing results by author "Shalom Aleichem" in All Categories

The story centers on Tevye, the father of five daughters, and his attempts to maintain his Jewish religious and cultural traditions, as outside influences encroach upon the family's lives. He must cope both with the strong-willed actions of his three older daughters, who wish to marry for love - each one's choice of a husband moves further away from the customs of his faith - and with the edict of the Tsar that evicts the Jews from their village.

This wonderful story takes us to a town called Kasrilevke, which is inhabited by poor but cheerful "little people" whose goal in life is simply to provide for the Sabbath.

After some time of not meeting him, Tevye the Milkman meets Sholom Aleichem, the story's primary narrator as well as its author, and begins to tell of the troubles that have come on him (turning his hair gray) because of his gullibility, fatalism, and obedience to God, which make him an easy target for misfortune.

It is Yom Kippur, and the entire village - a town so poor there is nothing to steal and no one to steal it from - is praying in shul, observing the daylong fast. There is an out-of-town stranger with them - a rich visitor and a generous one too: He donates to the rabbi, the cantor, the shul, and the poorest of the town. So it is particularly shocking when, near the end of the service, the visitor suddenly discovers that the rest of the money he had with him has been stolen!

Although written from a child's perspective, this is not a kids' book but a series of funny, poignant, and sometimes disturbing stories about life in a late nineteenth-century Russian-Jewish village.