If I Were A Rothschild And The Yearn For Mammon (video)

By Gilad Atzmon

Many people are familiar with Fiddler on the Roof, the 1960’s musical set in Tsarist Russia in 1905. The Musical  is based on Tevye and his Daughters (or Tevye the Dairyman) as well as  other tales by Sholem Aleichem.  The most memorable tune from this Jewish American musical was ‘If I Were a Rich Man’. I guess that not many would know that the musical was also translated into Hebrew and Yiddish.  However, the translator of the Hebrew and Yiddish shows took some liberties in their adaptation; they decided to appeal to the Jewish imagination, by means of concretisation . ‘If I Were A Rich Man’ became, ‘If I Were A Rothschild.’