Rant #3,092: Tradition

Yes, in my Rant about recent celebrity deaths, I did forget about Topol, the most famous Israeli movie star of his generation, who will forever be remembered for his portrayal of “Tevye” in the screen version of “Fiddler On the Roof.”

I think I forgot about him because his career did not mesh with that of the two others I spoke about in that Rant, Robert Blake and Joe Pepitone.

Blake and Pepitone were two guys who reached the heights of their chosen professions—acting and baseball, respectively—but made really bad choices in life that kept them from reaching the top rung of those areas.

Chaim Topol, on the other hand, seemed to do everything right, and was Israel’s first international film star, for which he won just about all the honors due him, and continued to be a popular actor into his early 80s.

He started acting while in the Israeli Army, and continued to act when he got out of the service.

His gritty look—and his being multilingual—endeared him to international audiences, and he acted in films starring the likes of Kirk Douglas and even Roger Moore’s James Bond, but it was for “Fiddler” that he will forever be remembered.

Having played Tevye in numerous stage productions of the play, he was just about a natural to play the character on screen, and while he did not win the Academy Award for his portrayal in the 1971 film—Gene Hackman won for his own signature role as “Popeye Doyle” in “The French Connection”—Topol embraced the role that actors from Zero Mostel to Herschel Bernardi to Harvey Fierstein have also made their own …

But Topol stood out as the film Tevye, and I saw one estimate that between the film and other stagings of the play, he had played the role of Tevye for more than 3,500 performances.

As I mentioned in a reply to yesterday’s Rant, I knew “Fiddler” pretty well as a child.

My parents saw the original Broadway production with Mostel as Tevye, and in those days, when my parents saw a musical play that they enjoyed, my mother would go out and buy the play’s soundtrack.

She did just that for “Riddle,” and in our apartment, one could often hear the soundtrack being played, from “Tradition” to “If I Were a Rich Man,” tunes which almost became part of my family’s DNA the more the record was played on our HiFi.

When the film came out in 1971, my family and I were among those who saw the movie before it made its way to local theaters, as the film was premiered in a Manhattan movie theater as a benefit for ORT—a global educational network driven by Jewish values that has been around since the late 1800s—which my maternal grandmother was very involved with.

I am sure that Topol was at the film’s premiere, but I honestly can’t remember for sure.

But what I can tell you is that when we saw the movie—the only movie I can ever remember having to get dressed up for in a suit and tie—my memories of Mostel’s performance of the Tevye role on record gave way to Topol’s portrayal, and Topol is the Tevye that I, personally, will most remember.

Unfortunately, for most younger people, the first and only Israeli actor that they know is probably Gal Gadot of “Wonder Woman” fame, and they know nothing about Topol.

And that is sad piece of reality in today’s world.

There is no clear segue way into what I am going to talk about now, other than the person I am going to talk about is Jewish, and the character that he plays milks his Jewishness for all it is worth.

I have told you about Maxwell Jacob Friedman—known as MJF--the professional wrestler from Plainview, Long Island, who as the world’s champion from All Elite Wrestling, has become one of the most popular—and hated—wrestlers of recent times.

He does not hide his Jewishness—in fact, he wears it on his sleeve—and his character on the weekly wrestling broadcasts often uses his Jewishness as a catalyst for storylines on the show.

On yesterday’s AEW broadcast, he celebrated his “Re-Bar Mitzvah,” as he had just turned 26 years old and thus, was 13 years removed form his actual bar mitzvah date from when he was 13 years old.

He entered the ring amidst music befitting the occasion, wearing his yarmulke and talis, and several others followed him, eventually elevating him in a chair like what happens at a regular bar mitzvah or a Jewish wedding.

A cake was also wheeled out, and when a cake is wheeled out during a wrestling show, you just know what will eventually happen to that cake.

Anyway, this whole thing elicited lots of hoots and hollers, and a lot of cheers, too. Whenever MJF milks his Jewishness on the show, there doesn’t appear to be any nastiness shown him by the crowd—they boo and jeer him because he is AEW's’ biggest heel, and there has not been one reported incident of anti-Semitism shown by the crowd that I can remember.

Anyway, to cut to the chase, while he was parading around the ring, three other wrestlers “crashed” his “re-bar mitzvah,” all wanting a shot at MJF’s championship belt, an award that he was not willing to give up to them.

And yes, through skirmishes in the ring between MJF and the other wrestlers, you know who ended up head-first into the cake … the “re-bar mitzvah” boy, naturally.

MJF really plays this to a hilt, and he does it so well that it is almost impossible to separate MJF the wrestler from MTF—his real initials—the 26-year-old guy who is proud of his Jewishness.

It is all played to accentuate his role as a heel, and evidently, wrestling fans take it for what it is, and nothing else.

There have been other Jewish wrestlers who have reached fame in the squared circle, including Edge, Kane and of course, Goldberg, but no other wrestler has ever ridden his religion into the sunset like MJF does on a weekly basis.

Maybe the link between Topol and MJF is a thin one, but in past times, when many Jewish celebrities pretty much hid their religion, here are two who broke the mold, and have shown pride in their religion by pretty much wearing it on their sleeves.

Topol and MJF … almost like oil and vinegar, but of the Kosher kind