Jewish tradition -- and its breakdown -- in Anatevka, 1905 Czarist Russia. Tevye the milkman and his wife Golde, enlist a matchmaker, as is tradition, to find husbands for their five daughters. Each of the eldest three finds a husband on her own - one a tailor, one a revolutionary and one a Gentile. While Tevye can accept the first two, he cannot sanction the third. Tevye struggles as his world comes to an end -- literally and figuratively -- as he and the other Jews are ejected from their homeland and must emigrate to America at play's end.