Last night we went to a Durham Theatre Company production of "Fiddler on the Roof" at the Gala Theatre.
What a reminder!
It was heartbreaking to see a downtrodden people struggling to maintain their identity; even the kind and open-minded one (Tevye) suffers - perhaps the most as the traditions he's used to gradually get eroded because he cares more for happiness than status.
The sense of being down-trodden deepens as the Tsarist constables attack the Jewish people more and more often.
Finally the Jews are thrown out of their village and that whole region (in the snow, in our production).
Remember, this play was set in 1905.
I should have enjoyed the production, but it was so good that I got caught up in the sentiment. How many refugees are there world-wide? How long have they been without a country? Or for example in Gaza strip, how many are living in temporary accommodation because they've been forced off their own land? Which reminds me - how the tables have turned! In 1905 it was the Jews who were persecuted. Now it seems the Zionists are the persecutors.
