Similarities Between Funny Girl And Yentl
Of the many films throughout history that portray Jewish life, three major works are Funny Girl (1968), Fiddler on the Roof (1971), and Yentl (1983), all of which cover different eras and themes of Jewish history, including Jews in Eastern Europe, immigration and religious change, and Jewish assimilation in the United States. In different ways, all these films cover different aspects of Jewish life and experience realistically based on historical accounts and reflect on the culture of tradition turning to modernization.
Beginning with Fiddler on the Roof, whose setting is chronologically first, the film follows the life of Tevye, a Jewish milkman, and his family in a small Russian village at the turn of the 20th century. Having five daughters, Tevye and his wife Golde deal with the marriages of their three eldest, all of which gradually move farther away from their community’s idea of traditional engagement and subsequent marriage. Their first daughter, Tzeitel, defies tradition by asking permission to marry her friend Motel, with whom she made a pledge to marry without the arrangement of …show more content…
a matchmaker. The second daughter, Hodel, becomes engaged to the tutor Perchik without asking for Tevye’s permission at all, but rather simply asks for his blessing. While Tevye is taken aback by the bends in tradition, he ultimately accepts them as the “world is changing”. His third daughter, Chava, though, intends to marry a Christian man in the village. Tevye forbids it, but she does it anyway, and as a result he disowns her and considers her dead to their family. According to Tevye, “if I bend that far, I’ll break”. While Tevye deals with conforming to changing tradition in the marriage of his daughters, he and the village deal with increasing tensions between Jews and Christians in the Russian Empire, including a pogrom on the night of Tzeitel’s wedding. In the end, all of the Jews are forced out of their village, all migrating to different places; Tevye’s family and the butcher Lazar Wolf both make way for America, while Yente the matchmaker makes her way for Jerusalem.
As the idea of “tradition” is the main theme of the film, the traditions displayed in the film are authentic to the Jewish traditions of the time and setting in Eastern Europe. Of the important traditions of the community displayed are the covering of the head, wearing of the prayer shawl by men, and observance of the Sabbath. One of the especially emphasized traditions, though, is the arrangement of a marriage by a matchmaker. This was actually a common practice of a professional arranging matches, an act called a Shidduch, and is actually a mitzvah (Rockman 280). Even more rigidly adhered to, as is shown by Tevye disowning his daughter, is that intermarriage was forbidden. While the Hebrew Bible itself has no distinct prohibition of interfaith marriage, the Talmud and later rabbinic texts strictly forbid it, and in such “traditional” societies it was adhered to as such (Cohen 36). This makes sense, given the emphasis in Judaism on passing on Judaism to future generations. In intermarriage, the children have a chance of not being brought up in the Jewish faith, which is of the utmost importance in Judaism. Chava’s interfaith marriage, along with the family’s move to America soon thereafter, exemplifies the gradual change in attitude toward interfaith marriage in modern practice. As Ari Goldman states, the intermarriage rate of Jews in the United States was just under 10% in 1950, but eventually grows to over 50% by 1990 (80).
Yentl, which also takes place at the turn of the century, but in Poland, tells the story of a young woman who disguises herself as a boy in order to study the Talmud in a Yeshiva. In her Orthodox community in Poland, Yentl, as a woman, is forbidden from the study of the Talmud or the Torah. She disguises herself as a man, Hanschel, and makes her way to a yeshiva in a neighboring town. Upon her admission to the yeshiva, she meets a fellow student, Avigdor, and falls in love with him. Still unaware of her true identity, she ends up marrying Avigdor’s ex-fiancée as a favor once her family forbids him too. After being unable to hide her identity in a false marriage any longer, Yentl confesses her true identity to Avigdor and her love for him. Initially angry, Avigdor eventually recognizes his love for her as well and wants to marry and start a life together. However, Yentl knows that in that life, as a wife, she would be unable to continue her study in a public setting, and instead decides to leave for America in the hope of better opportunity for herself.
Yentl also tackles the rigid traditions in Judaism in place at the time, particularly those of gender roles, and the evolution and change of religion. Historically, this is accurate, as public religious life was very limited for women until recent history. The first bat mitzvah wasn’t held until 1922, and wasn’t popular until the 1970’s (A Goldman), and the first yeshivas for women weren’t established until the 1970’s Golinkin 55). Coincidentally, the first bat mitzvah and some of the first yeshivas were in the United States, Yentl’s destination at the end of the film. Yentl’s journey to America to participate in Jewish public life is a precursor to the eventual changing practices that will become present.
Funny Girl, subsequently, takes place in the destination of the protagonists at the end of the last two films: the United States.
In New York City in the 1920’s, actress and singer Fanny Brice recounts her meeting and marriage to Nicky Arnstein as she awaits his release from prison. Growing up in a close-knit Jewish neighborhood, Fanny dreams of being a performer. After a performance one day, she’s discovered by Florenz Ziegfeld, of the Ziegfeld Follies, as well as Nicky Arnstein. Being offered a role in the Follies, she also begins a relationship with Arnstein, eventually leading to marriage and a daughter. While continuing her career as a successful performer, Nicky falls into debt from his drought of making money through gambling. He is eventually arrested and sent to prison over a fraudulent bond scheme he becomes involved in. Upon his return, he and Fanny agree to
separate.
Whereas the protagonists of Fiddler and Yentl represent the gradual movement away from tradition, Fanny Brice represents the experience of the American Jew, assimilated into American society and culture. Fanny, connected to her Judaism through her upbringing, ultimately leads the secular, assimilated life of the American Jew. She finds enormous success in the entertainment industry, where Jews have found significant success and influence. Although ambiguous in the film, the real-life Nicky Arnstein was in fact a Christian (H Goldman, 61), showing Fanny as a part of the aforementioned gradual trend towards intermarriage in American Jews. Not only does Fanny participate in the trend of intermarriage, but she also enters the marriage by her own mutual decision with her husband, a move towards secularization, given the nature of Shidduch as a mitzvah and tradition. Her secularization is an important part of the assimilation to American society; Fanny, nor anyone else expresses any type of religious devotion to Judaism. By doing this, she appears as the assimilated Jew, non-distinguishable from anyone else that most Jews in American society are seen as today.
Where Fiddler on the Roof and Yentl represent the struggle to move away from rigid tradition in Eastern European cultures, Funny Girl is the embodiment of the assimilated, secular Jew in America. As Tevye in Fiddler is forced to bend his traditions to modern culture, he is also forced to emigrate to the United States, symbolic of a move towards modern change in religion, where women can choose their husbands, interfaith marriage is relatively normal, and people aren’t strictly observant of old traditions. In the same way, Yentl’s move to America at the end of Yentl is symbolic of changing traditions. In the United States, Yentl hopes to be able to live a more public life as a Jewish woman, rather than the tradition of women being withheld to private life. Consequential to this, we then see the resulting modern Jewish culture in Funny Girl, where assimilation with the majority-Christian society is the norm and little attention is paid to rigid tradition by most. While all three films explore different eras and settings of Jewish culture, they are connected by the gradual assimilation and modernization of the Jewish culture and faith. Although these three films cover different aspects of Jewish history and culture, the important connection between them is the gradual change in religion and tradition, particularly in emigration from Eastern Europe to the United States. From the journeys of Tevye and Yentl to the American lifestyle of Fanny Brice, one is able to see the trends in movement from rigid traditions regarding marriage to women in public life, towards their modern practice in American culture.
Beginning with Fiddler on the Roof, whose setting is chronologically first, the film follows the life of Tevye, a Jewish milkman, and his family in a small Russian village at the turn of the 20th century. Having five daughters, Tevye and his wife Golde deal with the marriages of their three eldest, all of which gradually move farther away from their community’s idea of traditional engagement and subsequent marriage. Their first daughter, Tzeitel, defies tradition by asking permission to marry her friend Motel, with whom she made a pledge to marry without the arrangement of …show more content…
a matchmaker. The second daughter, Hodel, becomes engaged to the tutor Perchik without asking for Tevye’s permission at all, but rather simply asks for his blessing. While Tevye is taken aback by the bends in tradition, he ultimately accepts them as the “world is changing”. His third daughter, Chava, though, intends to marry a Christian man in the village. Tevye forbids it, but she does it anyway, and as a result he disowns her and considers her dead to their family. According to Tevye, “if I bend that far, I’ll break”. While Tevye deals with conforming to changing tradition in the marriage of his daughters, he and the village deal with increasing tensions between Jews and Christians in the Russian Empire, including a pogrom on the night of Tzeitel’s wedding. In the end, all of the Jews are forced out of their village, all migrating to different places; Tevye’s family and the butcher Lazar Wolf both make way for America, while Yente the matchmaker makes her way for Jerusalem.
As the idea of “tradition” is the main theme of the film, the traditions displayed in the film are authentic to the Jewish traditions of the time and setting in Eastern Europe. Of the important traditions of the community displayed are the covering of the head, wearing of the prayer shawl by men, and observance of the Sabbath. One of the especially emphasized traditions, though, is the arrangement of a marriage by a matchmaker. This was actually a common practice of a professional arranging matches, an act called a Shidduch, and is actually a mitzvah (Rockman 280). Even more rigidly adhered to, as is shown by Tevye disowning his daughter, is that intermarriage was forbidden. While the Hebrew Bible itself has no distinct prohibition of interfaith marriage, the Talmud and later rabbinic texts strictly forbid it, and in such “traditional” societies it was adhered to as such (Cohen 36). This makes sense, given the emphasis in Judaism on passing on Judaism to future generations. In intermarriage, the children have a chance of not being brought up in the Jewish faith, which is of the utmost importance in Judaism. Chava’s interfaith marriage, along with the family’s move to America soon thereafter, exemplifies the gradual change in attitude toward interfaith marriage in modern practice. As Ari Goldman states, the intermarriage rate of Jews in the United States was just under 10% in 1950, but eventually grows to over 50% by 1990 (80).
Yentl, which also takes place at the turn of the century, but in Poland, tells the story of a young woman who disguises herself as a boy in order to study the Talmud in a Yeshiva. In her Orthodox community in Poland, Yentl, as a woman, is forbidden from the study of the Talmud or the Torah. She disguises herself as a man, Hanschel, and makes her way to a yeshiva in a neighboring town. Upon her admission to the yeshiva, she meets a fellow student, Avigdor, and falls in love with him. Still unaware of her true identity, she ends up marrying Avigdor’s ex-fiancée as a favor once her family forbids him too. After being unable to hide her identity in a false marriage any longer, Yentl confesses her true identity to Avigdor and her love for him. Initially angry, Avigdor eventually recognizes his love for her as well and wants to marry and start a life together. However, Yentl knows that in that life, as a wife, she would be unable to continue her study in a public setting, and instead decides to leave for America in the hope of better opportunity for herself.
Yentl also tackles the rigid traditions in Judaism in place at the time, particularly those of gender roles, and the evolution and change of religion. Historically, this is accurate, as public religious life was very limited for women until recent history. The first bat mitzvah wasn’t held until 1922, and wasn’t popular until the 1970’s (A Goldman), and the first yeshivas for women weren’t established until the 1970’s Golinkin 55). Coincidentally, the first bat mitzvah and some of the first yeshivas were in the United States, Yentl’s destination at the end of the film. Yentl’s journey to America to participate in Jewish public life is a precursor to the eventual changing practices that will become present.
Funny Girl, subsequently, takes place in the destination of the protagonists at the end of the last two films: the United States.
In New York City in the 1920’s, actress and singer Fanny Brice recounts her meeting and marriage to Nicky Arnstein as she awaits his release from prison. Growing up in a close-knit Jewish neighborhood, Fanny dreams of being a performer. After a performance one day, she’s discovered by Florenz Ziegfeld, of the Ziegfeld Follies, as well as Nicky Arnstein. Being offered a role in the Follies, she also begins a relationship with Arnstein, eventually leading to marriage and a daughter. While continuing her career as a successful performer, Nicky falls into debt from his drought of making money through gambling. He is eventually arrested and sent to prison over a fraudulent bond scheme he becomes involved in. Upon his return, he and Fanny agree to
separate.
Whereas the protagonists of Fiddler and Yentl represent the gradual movement away from tradition, Fanny Brice represents the experience of the American Jew, assimilated into American society and culture. Fanny, connected to her Judaism through her upbringing, ultimately leads the secular, assimilated life of the American Jew. She finds enormous success in the entertainment industry, where Jews have found significant success and influence. Although ambiguous in the film, the real-life Nicky Arnstein was in fact a Christian (H Goldman, 61), showing Fanny as a part of the aforementioned gradual trend towards intermarriage in American Jews. Not only does Fanny participate in the trend of intermarriage, but she also enters the marriage by her own mutual decision with her husband, a move towards secularization, given the nature of Shidduch as a mitzvah and tradition. Her secularization is an important part of the assimilation to American society; Fanny, nor anyone else expresses any type of religious devotion to Judaism. By doing this, she appears as the assimilated Jew, non-distinguishable from anyone else that most Jews in American society are seen as today.
Where Fiddler on the Roof and Yentl represent the struggle to move away from rigid tradition in Eastern European cultures, Funny Girl is the embodiment of the assimilated, secular Jew in America. As Tevye in Fiddler is forced to bend his traditions to modern culture, he is also forced to emigrate to the United States, symbolic of a move towards modern change in religion, where women can choose their husbands, interfaith marriage is relatively normal, and people aren’t strictly observant of old traditions. In the same way, Yentl’s move to America at the end of Yentl is symbolic of changing traditions. In the United States, Yentl hopes to be able to live a more public life as a Jewish woman, rather than the tradition of women being withheld to private life. Consequential to this, we then see the resulting modern Jewish culture in Funny Girl, where assimilation with the majority-Christian society is the norm and little attention is paid to rigid tradition by most. While all three films explore different eras and settings of Jewish culture, they are connected by the gradual assimilation and modernization of the Jewish culture and faith. Although these three films cover different aspects of Jewish history and culture, the important connection between them is the gradual change in religion and tradition, particularly in emigration from Eastern Europe to the United States. From the journeys of Tevye and Yentl to the American lifestyle of Fanny Brice, one is able to see the trends in movement from rigid traditions regarding marriage to women in public life, towards their modern practice in American culture.