Broken Barriers

Khava

This 1919 silent is the first American film based on the same Sholem Aleichem stories as Fiddler on the Roof, but produced 50 years before the blockbuster musical. Unlike most adaptations of Aleichem’s work, Broken Barriers (Khavah) focuses not on Tevye the milkman, but on his daughter Khavah, who falls in love with the gentile boy Fedka and must navigate the reverberations from this with both her community and her family.

Screenplay

Sholom Aleichem

Director

Charles E. Davenport

Status

Released

Release date

01/01/1919

Original language

Yiddish