Tevye the Milkman as a War Criminal

June 15, 2002

by Steven Plaut

Comrades. The Israeli Left has just declared war on Tevya the Milkman. Not only that, but it has decided to demonize Salah Shabbati. Really.

Let me explain.

The very best movie that Israel has every produced, and for that matter the ONLY movie that most people can watch and leave the cinema with their lunch still inside them, is the great classic film Salah Shabbati, based on the humor of Israel’s classic comic writer Efraim Kishon. The actor who played the Salah Shabbati in that movie is Haim Topol. Topol also played Tevya in the Hollywood Oscar-winning film production of Fiddler on the Roof. Haim Topol is an Israeli cultural and theatrical treasure, a national hero.

Or at least he was.

But now, it seems, Topol has enraged the caring peace-loving Israeli Left. To put this into context, like Hollywood, Israel’s "culture" scene is always dominated by shallow know-nothing leftists. Israeli authors and poets are nearly all left and quite a few are outright communist. Most singers and actors and TV figures are as well. For example, Yaffa Yarkona, long the singer of heroic patriotic songs, recently came out as an Oslo bimbo who says Israeli soldiers are Nazis. Dudu Topaz thinks anyone who does not vote for the Left is a yahoo and a redneck. Poet Haim Hefer think Moroccan Jews are Untermenschen. And so on.

The Leftist totalitarian hegemony over Israel’s artsy scene is stronger even than it is in the US and Europe. Naturally, nearly all of them support mutiny and people who refuse to serve in the Israeli military out of leftist political motivations. They all want to appear at Peace Now rallies and many will also be happy to perform for Communist Party activities. It goes without saying the a settlement in the West Bank seeking a Saturday night singer or culture troupe will find absolutely no one available to perform.

But every once in a while, some singer or actor or artist has the nerve to buck the Leftist trend and utters politically incorrect heresies. When this happens, the entire artsy-phartsy community immediate excommunicates the villain, and usually sees to it that he, she or it (where Dana International would count as member of the third category) can not appear in public, perform, or be on TV or radio. For example, when a well-known Israeli singer expressed heterodox views of homosexuality, as in saying he thought it was a mental illness, he became persona non grata overnight and refused platforms and invitations to perform.

Rigid political conformism is the sine qua non for cultural and artistic people in Israel, even more so than it is in Israeli academic institutions. Conformism of course with pro-treason Oslo leftism, I mean.

Into this stage scene steps Tevya the Milkman, Haim Topol himself. Comrades, you see, it seems Topol is decidedly un-PC. He thinks the Jews have the right to their country and to defend themselves. He thinks Jews have the right to build settlements wherever they choose. And he thinks the murdered cabinet minister from the Right, Rehavam Zeevi, deserves some plaques and memorials.

It goes without saying that the greatest actor of the Israeli cinema has been declared demon of the year by the Oslo beautiful people. The air waves and press are full of their roars and yelps. Haaretz devotes a major weekend magazine piece to the traitor to peace. Tells everyone how hypocritical Topol is cause he keeps a second apartment in London. (Of course, the Lefty Yonatan Gefen, whose main contribution to culture is that he sired Aviv Gefen, always lives only in NY, but he is a Kultural hero of the same crowd).

I have always secretly nursed a hope that someone will write a sequel to Fiddler on the Roof, starring Topol, in which Tevya’s grandchildren all make aliyah, but are then murdered by gangs of peace-seeking Palestinians being cheered on by the avant garde of the Israeli cultural elite because the kids are enemies of peace.