Tevye is a pious Jewish dairyman living in the Russian Empire, the patriarch of a family including several troublesome daughters.

[a] The village of Boyberik, where the stories are set (renamed Anatevka in Fiddler on the Roof), is based on the town of Boyarka, Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire.

The Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof was based on a play written by Arnold Perl called Tevye and His Daughters.

For instance, by the time of the events of Lekh-Lekho, Tevye's wife Golde, his daughter Shprintze, and his son-in-law Motl have all died; also in Lekh-Lekho, upon learning of the Jews' expulsion, Chava leaves her Russian Orthodox husband, wanting to return to her family and share their exile.

[6] The Tevye stories have been recorded and commercially released twice: An audio production of Arnold Perl's play Tevya and His Daughters was released by Columbia Masterworks in 1957 (OL 5225); the cast included Mike Kellin as Tevya, Anna Vita Berger as Golde/The Rich Woman, Joan Harvey as Tzeitl, Carroll Conroy as Hodl, and Howard Da Silva (who also directed the production) as Lazar Wolf/The Rich Merchant/The Rabbi.

Zero Mostel and Chaim Topol are the two actors most associated with the role of Tevye, although Theodore Bikel performed it many times on stage.

[9] For the film version of Fiddler on the Roof, the part ultimately went to Topol, as producer-director Norman Jewison felt that Mostel's portrayal was too unnecessarily comic.

Prior to the 1964 Broadway debut of Fiddler on the Roof, adaptations of the Tevye stories appeared on stage and screen, in America and beyond.