The cast of the new "Fiddler" had to learn Yiddish from scratch

Imagine doing a great Broadway musical in Yiddish. Sounds crazy, does not it?

Not when this show is "Fiddler on the Roof". Since its debut in 1964, the story of Tevye and her daughters and Yente the matchmaker has been performed worldwide, in English, Japanese, German and Hebrew.

But while he was relaunched five times on Broadway, this was never done in New York in Yiddish, the native tongue of Tevye's creator, Sholem Aleichem. Clearly, the Yiddish National Theater Folksbiene decided that the time had come

. According to a 1965 translation by an actor-director who directed it in Israel, the production of Folksbiene – now played at the Jewish Heritage Museum in Battery Park – is spoken. sung in Yiddish, subtitled in English.

Neither the director of the show, Joel Gray, nor all the other members of the troupe, except three, knew much about Yiddish at first. The scripts are in English, the dialogue and the lyrics of the songs have been explained phonetically.

"I think I will deceive people who do not know the language," said Jackie Hoffman, Broadway veteran ("Hairspray", The Addams Family ") who plays Yente." It's all about sounds. I've always been good at cha . Oh my, there are so many fabulous words!

His new favorite phrase is " Khobes oysgetracht ", meaning Do you think I invented it? And if most viewers rely on subtitles, Hoffman says, "Fiddler's so universal, he's probably chiseled in your brain!"

Subtitles or not, Gray has been surprised

"When they called and asked me to direct this, I thought," Whoa! " says the star "Cabaret" who staged "The Normal Heart" of Broadway with George C. Wolfe. they said, "In Yiddish!" and there was another "Whoa!" I said, "Let me sleep on it." Then I thought it was something that I had to do.

Harold Prince and Sheldon Harnick, The original producer and the lyricist of the show gave their blessing to the project, although Harnick was surprised by the result. "I thought it would have a special resonance," said the native of Chicago hearing his words in Yiddish, the shtetl's jargon, "but it sounds like a foreign language!"

Gray says the only Yiddish he's born Parodies of songs of the 1950s sung by his father, Mickey Katz, famous for his ditty songs like "The baby, the Bubble and you."

"We first worked in English," Gray tells The Post. "And if everything went well, we would add Yiddish." He says that he and the cast received daily training from the dialect experts at the museum.

The show has just been extended for a week.

"It's the same score and the same show, but it's so different, so authentic," Gray says. And relevant, too, he says, noting how Tevye and his family are forced to leave their homes. "It's the great musical of immigration, is not it?"

" Fiddler on the Roof ," in Yiddish, until September 2 at the Jewish Heritage Museum, 36 Battery Place; NYTF.org