I can see the “kinda weird,” but it seems more like “cliched common ground.” It would be weird in 1965. Now it’s like singing Negro Spirituals when joining for a service with a black congregation, or singing “Amazing Grace” at any TV funeral with a mixed attendance. I mean, I love my wife and daughter and am a big fan of their choir master, but she’s a Swede and there’s a whole lotta soul missing when she has them sing both Spirituals and songs from [del]German East Africa[/del] Tanzania, with which our current hymnal has in spades.
Bingo. Not necessarily a given that this is the case, but the possibility exists of it being seen this way so I wouldn’t risk it. And FTR, ‘Fiddler’ is a beautiful play/musical.
If I were a Jewish participant, I’d probably rather hear something I don’t hear very often…like Christian church music. Amazing Grace, The Old Rugged Cross, Rock of Ages, stuff like that.
Twenty five years ago I drove past what they called “The Old Rugged Cross” outside Albion, Michigan, and there wasn’t a scrap of rug on it.
No, I wouldn’t include anything that’s specific to either religion. The Christian songs will sound like proselytizing, and the Jewish songs condescending. There are plenty of great songs having to do with nonspecific spirituality or issues like peace and good will . . . or even non-religious seasonal songs.
And it didn’t even look angry!
This is a UU congregation, so Jesus Christ Superstar wouldn’t relate to anything in the room. I’ve never been Christian. I just thought that singing a song or two out of Fiddler would have been fun. We could have also done a few other broadway things. I see though that it could be strange.
In this redneck town, we are the closest thing to a GBTL chorus there is.
You know what you guys can perform instead? Handel, Judas Maccabeus. It’s classical, it has a strong Jewish theme, and it rocks - better than the Messiah, IMHO. “See the Con’quering Hero Come”, in particular, is the best Hannukka song ever written.
Actually, I wouldn’t mind it. Sholem Aleichem is considered one of the great (arguably greatest) Yiddish writers, and Fiddler (Tevye the Milkman) encapsulates a very large part of Ashkenazi culture, as well a being representing a fair bit of the modern Diaspora identity.
Fiddler doesn’t have any negative connotations for me as a Jew. It shows the plight and mentality of the Shtetl-Jews, and Tevye’s and his family’s struggle with integrating with the gentile world around them, which is still a question for Jews in the Diaspora, and always has been. Showing an understanding of Fiddler is to show understanding for western Jewish culture, in my opinion.
Anyway…Fiddler is a cultural play, not a religious one, so I don’t see anybody taking offense for it (and it’s not entirely analogous to performing a rendition of JCSuperstar).
I agree with the “not offensive, but probably seen as tacky” sentiment. And I’m still unclear whether it’s the whole play or just a few songs. If just a few songs, appropriate to Thanksgiving, that seems fine to me. I heard “Sunrise, Sunset” sung at a totally Christian wedding, no Jews involved, and a freind told me that his church sometimes uses “Sabbath Prayer.” Fiddler is a well-known Broadway musical, so a couple songs wouldn’t seem out of place.
However, I guess the analogy would be, if you had a joint ceremony with a primarily black church, would you sing songs from Porgy and Bess? Seems … tacky. Sort of like saying, “Look how ecumenical we are!”
Sure, but does a choir singing a song or two represent “understanding”, or just the regular process that choirs do to prepare a song?
If the congregation wishes to show understanding in the context of ecumenical sharing, I don’t think a fraction of them singing some songs is going to help. Maybe if they asked to be invited to next year’s Passover Seder or something like that would demonstrate their intent for understanding IMHO.