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I was casting about for an appropriate topic for my end-of-the-year blog. Since everyone, from The New York Times on down, was busily engaged in compiling a list of 2015’s most memorable moments, its highs and lows, I thought I’d follow suit -- but with a twist: I’d take stock of this year’s most memorable academic moments. Perhaps, just perhaps, something approximating a pattern, or, better yet, a theme might emerge, endowing this exercise -- much less 2015 -- with an internal unity, even a degree of symmetry.

Original Fiddler on the Roof Broadway window card
Original Fiddler on the Roof Broadway window card/Wikipedia

What if I were to summon up some of the more arcane administrative forms that had to be filed and re-filed over the course of the year, or recall the buzzwords, those equally arcane phrases, that filled the air at faculty meetings and conferences? Maybe recounting the grammatical gaffes and fatal mis-spellings committed by my students as well as chronicling my own mis-steps in the classroom might yield a profitable insight or two?

Just as I was about to compile my list, a brand-new production of Fiddler on the Roof debuted on Broadway, and to glowing reviews. Before I could say “Tradition,” I found my subject. Good-bye to my top ten; hello, once again, to this evergreen of Broadway musicals.

Between last year and this one, we’ve studied Fiddler in class, tracked its provenance and explored every nook and cranny of its production history to the point where we seemed to have exhausted every conceivable angle.

Not quite; there’s more. That the new production takes place within the context of an international refugee crisis freighted this tale of dislocation with even greater plangency.

Its ongoing resonance extended beyond the Great White Way. In honor of the play’s revival, a prominent synagogue in New York actually integrated Fiddler’s lyrical “Sabbath Prayer” into a Friday evening service, where it was sung full-throttle by not one but two cantors.

Now that’s what I call symmetry -- and a fitting conclusion to the year.

Like most of us, I look forward to 2015 with keen anticipation: So many museums to visit, performances to see, and articles to read. Strike that last bit; it’s just not true. Between the recent implosion at The New Republic and the spate of early retirements and firings at The New York Times, I’m not sure I’ll have much to read, come 2015.

New York Times
New York Times. Flickr/Kike Muñoz Beltrán

For years, I enjoyed making my way through TNR’s fabled “back of the book,” delighting in what its discerning contributors had to say about the latest title or exhibition or film. The magazine made me a culturally literate and engaged citizen of the world -- and a better professor, too. Time and again, I drew on its insights when preparing for a lecture or in casual conversation with colleagues and students.

The Times also left a big imprint on me. Between Joseph Berger’s wise and sensitively drawn human interest stories, Edward Rothstein’s incisive museological critiques, and Christopher Gray’s gimlet-eyed “Streetscapes,” I learned how to write and how to reckon with human foibles, big ideas and the built environment.

Their collective departure from the Times leaves me bereft. Who will I turn to for commentary on the variegated New York Jewish community? Bring to campus to reflect on the most recent developments within the museum world? Inspire me to take to the streets in search of an arresting architectural detail?

I’ll make do, of course, but one thing is certain. I’ll be none the wiser in 2015.