It is customary among Orthodox Jewish women to cut off their hair after they married, and then wear babushkas or, on Sabbath and festive occasions, a wig called a "shetl".
But after Chava married, she still kept her long red hair. To me, I fear, that meant she was abandoning her faith.
Of course, among Conservative and Reform Jews--especially in America--this custom is not followed.
Hello again!
That's very interesting about the hair and tends to confirm what I just took for granted. I always assumed since her father disowned her that Chava was completely abandoning her Jewish faith, that she would no longer attend synagogue, observe Jewish laws and traditions, or raise any future children in the Jewish faith. I figure this is what led to the disowning, not simply that she was married in a church as opposed to under a canopy by a rabbi but that her father realized Chava was giving up her faith.
There was no mention of Chava making any attempt to continue practicing her Jewish faith after her marriage. Surely if such had been the case, she would have made every effort to reassure her father of this, desperately hoping to be reconciled with him.
It's all left quite vague as to whether Chava genuinely converted to Christianity (this seems doubtful as there was never any evidence of it) or whether she was simply going along with Fyedka because of being so in love with him and wanting to marry, thus making herself conform to his world and at least superficially adopt his religion (what I would suspect).
I thought it was very clear that Chava had basically given up her very Orthodox faith by marrying a non-Jew. When her sister or other family member confronted her about her spiritual condition, she said something to the effect, "Well, we [meaning her new non-Jewish husband] don't believe that." Thinking that she could become a gentile and still be accepted was amazingly naive of her. The Scriptures are clear.
Flanagan
I read that an Orthodox rabbi will not officiate at the wedding of a Jew to a Gentile. Also, during that era it would have been common for parents to disown their child for intermarriage, for them to sit shiva (Jewish mourning ritual) for such a child, and for the Jewish community to also disown this person. Hence Chava wouldn't feel welcome to worship at the synagogue or participate in other communal Jewish activities even if she had chosen to do so.
The reality of Chava's situation was an extremely unhappy one. If she had been a genuine convert to Christianity, this would have given more purpose to her pain in being isolated from her own people and she and Fyedka would have raised their children in the Christian faith. However, there wasn't any hint of such true conversion or of Fyedka having any desire to convert to Judaism.
After having had such a strict religious Jewish upbringing by these devout parents, it would surely bother her tremendously if she could not bring up her children properly in the Jewish faith. The children of a Jewish mother are considered Jewish so perhaps the local Jewish community would embrace them as they weren't to blame for their mother's intermarriage. But how would they feel about their mother being a pariah in the Jewish community? And how could she bring her children to the synagogue to learn about the faith if she wasn't welcome there herself? Fyedka might have had his own objections to them being raised in the Jewish faith unless he was only nominally a Christian and his own religion meant nothing to him.
Chava was very young and I agree, seems to have been extremely naive. It doesn't sound as though she thought out any of this at all. Of course nowadays we're all outraged by Tevye disowning his daughter but this practice seems to have been standard fare back then for intermarriage.
Most Reform rabbis will not officiate the wedding of a Jew to a Gentile.
I don't know if that's true. Most rabbis that I know are pro-interfaith marriage and will officiate as long as they intend to raise their children (if they ever have any) under the Jewish faith.
shareThat is changing, but many Reform rabbis still won't officiate inter-faith marriages. When my sister married her non-Jewish husband in 2004, our old rabbi wouldn't do the ceremony - so she ended up having the wedding at our father's house, with a family friend (who's a more liberal Reform rabbi) officiating. But our old rabbi was literally OLD, and passed away a few years later at the age of 85-ish. We no longer attend that temple, but I'm pretty sure the current clergy does perform inter-faith weddings. My synagogue in San Francisco even does gay weddings now! :-)
shareTo be married to Fietke she would be required to convert. Period. No Russian Orthodox priest of that time would have married them otherwise. She had to leave her faith behind. This is the big reason, though it goes unstated in the movie, that Tevye was so horrified and rejected her. If Fietke died and she wanted to return to the Jewish faith, she would have been killed--check the history on this: NO return to Jewishness once you have converted. Going to Krakow was a pretty foolish plan too because the Poles were even MORE strict about this, and plenty of pogroms took place there as well--Chmielnicki, Pilsudski--NOT a good place for a Christian to take his convert wife!
shareI never heard of such a thing!
Where did you get this information?
Which part of beijingpearl's post had you never heard of?
shareI was referring to the statement that Chava would have been killed if Fyedka died and she wished to return to her faith.
She might have been shunned, but not killed.
Nowhere in the Tanakh (Old Testament to you) does it say that a Jew was to be put to death for converting!
Satisfied???
I read beijingpearl's statement as meaning that she would have been killed by the Poles / the Ukrainians for re-converting from Christianity; and I think that's true. I don't know if this was an actual legal penalty in force at the time (it certainly had been for centuries in much of Europe); but even if not, the probability of a lynching - which the authorities would certainly not have acted against - would have been overwhelming.
shareI could be wrong, but I can't believe that the Jews of Poland or the Ukraine would actually have killed a person who, after conversion, wanted to rejoin the Jewish faith.
Such a person would more likely be shunned and expelled from the community, which might have been worse than execution.
As the Bible says, such a person would be "cut off from his kin."
In Bible days, Jewish execution was primarily for adultery and willful murder.
I don't think that list was extended in the following centuries.
But, as I said, I could be wrong.
[deleted]
Hi there, roghache.
Personally, I hope that it would be the other way around. The story depicts Chava's firm grounding in the Jewish faith; we know nothing of Fyedka's background or if he was excommunicated for marrying a Jewish girl. I like to think that Fyedka converted to Judaism (not Orthodox, which would not have accepted him, but a more liberal Judaism which Chava would also have embraced). I believe that this would make sense, given the young man's sensitivity and revulsion of the persecution of his wife's people, which the Russian Orthodox Church condoned.
If Fyedka and Chava decided to follow a more liberal form of Judaism, keeping her long hair wouldn't matter.
Fyedka mustn't have been excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church since the priest married them there, surely realizing that Chava was Jewish. It was never stated that she had officially converted (unless we're expected to assume it).
The persecution of the Jewish villagers was disgusting to Fyedka. However, surely if he'd had any intention of converting to Judaism, Chava would have mentioned this to her father in their final scene before the family left for America when she was desperately longing for reconciliation. They were still very young though so I suppose he might have decided to convert to a more liberal Judaism later after the couple moved to Krakow. It all seems left quite vague for viewers to speculate however they choose.
Yes, you're right, roghache. It is left up in the air as to this couple's future.
The story takes place ca. 1905. I just hope Tevye's children and grandchildren eventually came to America before Hitler took power.
Yes, I certainly hope so too!!
share"The story takes place ca. 1905. I just hope Tevye's children and grandchildren eventually came to America before Hitler took power."
We've all had to live for decades that the horror that
Chava and her family moved into the jaws of hell when
they moved to Krakow. Krakow was near Auschwitz.
But perhaps they did get out.
Jewison et all created a very effective way to keep the movie
in our minds when they kept this possibility into the script.
I thought they all moved to the US? At the end when they were yelling at each other as they were "moving out" about where they were going to in the US...?
shareno, Chava and her husband were moving to Krakow - her parents and younger sisters were moving to the US. Chava said she would write to them.
have you tried that crazy wrap thing?! http://erinleighmckenzie.myitworks.com
And Motel, Tzeitel, and their baby moved to Warsaw.
I remember watching this movie in a revival theater and hearing gasps of horror at those lines.
"If Fyedka and Chava decided to follow a more liberal form of Judaism, keeping her long hair wouldn't matter."
I don't think in the little village of Anatevkya that there would
have been a more liberal form of Judaism.
Before Chava would be allowed by the Orthodox Catholic priest to marry Fyedka, she would have had to agree that their children be raised as Catholic. And its possible that she may have converted, though it would have taken many weeks of religious instruction before she could have been baptized, and in that time its very likely that rumours of her going to the church would have leaked over to the Jewish part of the village. so if she did decide to convert, its most likely she would have put it off till after the wedding.
~*~~*~
"Ooh!Pass the popcorn! This is gonna be good!"
While I heard that haircutting indeed was customary among Orthodox Jewish women in Czarist Russia, it is important to notice this is costume is not shared by all Orthodox Jews, quite the opposite, at least in Israel it is only customary in quite a limited number of orthodox communities. What is customary and the religion demand is hair covering. Many use wigs in day-to-day life and not only on special occasions, while many others boycott any use of wigs; it is a very complicated matter which depends on the different tradition and spiritual leaders of each and any orthodox community.
I also have to mention that just like the fact that someone is catholic doesn't make him more or less religious than someone who is protestant, in a similar way a lot of secular Jews have only ties to orthodox Judaism; as goes the saying, 'The synagogue I don't attend is an Orthodox one''.In Israel most of the Jewish people are secular and don't have any ties to the conservative or the reform, and they make their ceremonies in the orthodox way and with the help of the orthodox authorities.
Anyway, marrying a non Jewish husband, sharing his unkosher kitchen, having a wedding in a church, and even entering a church, are all more severe sins than not cutting your hair after you get married.
Interesting observation. Not being Jewish I didn't notice this, but I did notice that her hair was pictured prominently in that scene, most likely for the reasons you name.
shareI recall seeing both Tzeitel and Golda, wigless, with their hair still long near the end of the movie.
I have seen enough to know I have seen too much. -- ALOTOshare
There is no such scene.
Both Golde and Tzeitel (after the latter's marriage to Motel) wore head coverings remarkably like the hijabs worn by Muslim women.
Chava still has her hair long because she married an Russian Orthodox Catholic...Catholics dont have the same rules about womens hair, though local customs might have them wearing babushkas. it seems to be common in many areas of Europe-even Queen Elizabeth of England wears them!
~*~~*~
"Ooh!Pass the popcorn! This is gonna be good!"
My mom is Russian Orthodox. I've never heard of Russian Orthodox Catholic.
shareMaybe Fyedka liked her beautiful red hair and asked her not to cut it?
Boo Hoo! Let me wipe away the tears with my PLASTIC hand!--Lindsey McDonald (Angel)
THANK YOU !!! I was hoping someone would say it.
Possessions are fleeting - Homer J. Simpson
It's pretty clear that Chava had to have converted to Christianity in order to be married in the Russian Orthodox church. I'm not an expert on Russian Orthodox, but I'd bet money on it.
By the way, in the original short story that this episode was based on, it was even more clear and even worse. In the short story, Tevye does NOT disown Chava like that-- he doesn't get the *chance*. When Chava runs off and marries the guy, that's the last they see of her; the church and the guy's family and all conspire to not let Chava see her family and not let the family see Chava. So, in the original story, yes, she did *completely* turn her back on her faith and people.
I wonder if she regretted it later in her life.
I'll wager that she did.
Besides, Fyedka never seemed to me to be a controller.
His family? I don't know.
His church? Probably, but I think he was strong enough to defy it, especially if Chava wanted to remain Jewish.
If I recall correctly, Chava didn't cut off her beautiful red hair, but she did cover most of it with scarves. That's what the women in my Orthodox family do.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.