Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness is a riveting portrait of writer Sholem Aleichem, whose stories about Tevye the Milkman became the basis of the Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof. Aleichem (1859‒1916) was a rebellious wordsmith who created a new genre of literature and used his remarkable humor to encapsulate the realities of the Eastern European Jewish world in the late nineteenth century.

Using a rich collection of archival footage, Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness recreates a time in czarist Russia when Jews were second-class citizens and frequent scapegoats in times of social and political unrest. At a time when the Jewish culture was repeatedly shattered by violent pogroms, no literature or newspapers existed in the Jews’ preferred Yiddish language. By founding the first Yiddish literary journal, Aleichem transformed himself into a revolutionary and helped foster the emergence of a new Jewish identity.

The film features enactments of excerpts from Aleichem’s stories, many of which turned difficult situations into high comedy and farce, and pairs them with old photographs that recall the vitality of shtetl life. It also incorporates commentaries from Aleichem’s 100-year-old granddaughter Bella Kaufman (author of Up the Down Staircase), Aaron Lansky of the Yiddish Book Center, and Professor Ruth Wisse of Harvard University.

“Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness is much more than a documentary biography of the Jewish Mark Twain ... It is a rich, beautifully organized and illustrated modern history of Eastern European Jewry examined through the life and work of the author.”
New York Times