1972 Summer Olympics medal table invitation and threatened to boycott the Games. Three days before the opening ceremonies the IOC voted to rescind their invitation and exclude the Rhodesian athletes. The Games were largely overshadowed by what has come to be known as the Munich massacre. On September 5 a group of eight Palestinian terrorists belonging to the Black September Organization broke into the Olympic Village and took nine Israeli athletes, coaches and officials hostage in their apartments. Two of the hostages who resisted were killed in the first moments of the break-in; the subsequent standoff in the Olympic Village lasted for almost 18 hours.
Shmuel Rodensky became popular throughout West Germany for his portrayal of Tevye, performing the role more than 1,400 times. He also toured with a production in Switzerland. He appeared on the German-language recording of the Hamburg premiere. On September 4, 1972, the evening before a Palestinian terrorist group infiltrated the Israeli Olympic athletes' quarters during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, the Israeli team attended a German-language performance of "Fiddler on the Roof" at the Deutsches Theater in Munich as guests of Rodensky, the lead actor. The Israelis received glasses of wine during the intermission and posed for pictures with Rodensky. The