Show Synopsis:
Tevye is a poor Jewish milkman who struggles to marry his three eldest daughters off to suitable men in their small Russian Jewish village, which keeps hearing rumors of the tsar's demands to drive the Jews from their homes. He asks the matchmaker Yente for help with Tzeitel's marriage, but she is trying to encourage Motel to overcome his fear of Tevye's temper to ask him for Tzeitel's hand, which would defy the tradition of letting adults decide. After their engagement, Tevye fakes a nightmare to convince his wife Golde that Tzeitel marrying Motel is for the best. During the wedding, the young radical Perchik dances with Hodel, defying Jewish tradition that the sexes may not dance with each other. A few months later, he proposes to her, and though Tevye is shocked, he gives them his blessing. He even consents to Hodel leaving to join Perchik in his exile in Siberia. Months later, Chava asks him for permission to marry Fyedka, but Fyedka is not Jewish, and Tevye will consider Chava to be dead to him and the family if she marries him, shich she does. As the Jews are expelled from their villages, Chava, Fyedka, Tzeitel, and Motel leave for Poland while Golde and Tevye leave for America with their two youngest daughters.	

Character:
Hodel, a seventeen-year-old Jewish girl; falls in love with Perchik who shows her modern and new ways of thinking outside of the home she knows.

Song Context:
Perchik has been arrested and exiled to Siberia, and Hodel is determined to join him there, despite the fact that she will have to leave her family behind. Perchik is now the center of her life, but she knows she will always love her parents and sisters.	

Fun Facts:
1) The plot of Fiddler on the Roof was developed from Yiddish short stories by Sholom Aleichem. 
2) From the opening number, Jerome Robbins and the rest of the creative team were determined to show "tradition" and how it breaks down throughout the play as Tevye sees his daughters leave him one-by-one. 
3) Julia Migenes made her final Broadway appearance as the original Hodel before embarking on a very successful opera career that included the title role in the film of Carmen.