Woody Guthrie Singing of Rebuilding the Holy Temple

Woody (Woodrow Wilson) Guthrie needs no introduction regarding his stature and presence within the American folk ballad scene. The January 29, 1961 get-together that Bob Dylan sought out with the ailing Guthrie in New Jersey five days after he arrived from Minnesota to New York is classic folk song history, resulting in the “Song to Woody”.

Guthrie’s second wife was Marjorie Mazia Greenblatt. And she was Jewish. Her parents were Isidore Greenblatt and Aliza nee Aharonson. Majorie’s mother was a well-known Yiddish poetess born in the Bukivina region and spending her early years Mohilev although her vibrant memories of the Ozaryntsi shtetl were her fondest. And her parents were Zionists. Among her accomplishments and positions was the founding of the Atlantic City branch of the Zionist Organization of America, senior membership in Hadassah and the Jewish National Fund and serving as national president of Pioneer Women.  In 1920, Isadore traveled to then Mandate Palestine to set up a fruit-canng business in preparation for immigration but returned. Another attempt at Aliyah some thirty years later failed as well but Aliza was a committed activist on behalf of the Jewish homeland.

Woody met Majorie while in New York and married her in 1945. The couple and their eventuall four children lived nearby the Greenblatt’s in Brooklyn and Woody became close to his mother-in-law and picked up some Jewish knowledge (Arlo was sent to Hebrew school tutoring). He ended up writing several songs with Jewish themes and one of them, for Chanukah, was recorded for his close firend and production associate Moses Asch who headed Folkways Records.

The song, “The Many and the Few”, contains twenty verses, opening with the proclamation of Cyrus and goes on to mention Ezra, Alexander the Great, Hannah, Mattathias, the Talmud, Jerusalem and much more. It ends with thanks to “God we are seeds of the Jews”. The song is unabashedly Zionist and Jewish through and through.

Guthrie has Cyrus giving the order that enables the Jews to go back home “To build your holy temple again, In the land of Palestine”. The Jews go “Back to Eretz Yisroel’s land” to work it “with plow and rake and hoe”, blessing “the works of our hands”. The Jews are urged to “keep your Torah true” which will result in them being “fertile and multiply”.

Two verses are worth quoting in full:

“If My name is Jerusalem where Judah came back

To build up my Temple once more

To cut down the weeds and thorny brush

That grows ‘round my windows and doors

Whole stones, whole stones, we’ll build and pray

To God as a wholehearted Jew

God’s love the hateful many did place

In the hands of a God loving few”.

Indeed, this land of Israel is our land.

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Comment to a Comment on Dylan's "Neighborhood Bully"

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December 7, 2016 at 12:20 pm

To Jamal of India who wrote:

January 22, 2016 at 5:34 pm

“My respect for Dylan fell with this song. I always thought of him as a liberal protest singer with a strong sense of right and wrong. This song screws all that.”

Your first error is presuming that a “liberal” is always correct.

Your second is that Dylan erred on the wrong side.

Third, he is no bigot.

Fourth, putting out “TV channels run by Israel-backed magnates” not only is factually wrong but slides into a Judeaophobic frame of reference that most people would recongize as gutter anti-Semitism.

Fifth, the most “obvious guilt” is that of the Arabs who refuse still to acknowledge any Jewish national identity anywhere in what the world recognized as the historic Jewish homeland.

Oh, as for Roger Waters, is he still going out with that Palestinian woman who he stole from her Jewish husband? Is that being too liberal?

(see: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3644733/Roger-Waters-dating-Rula-Jebreal-having-affair-Palestinian-writer-met-Pink-Floyd-rocker-husband-wife-close-friends.html)

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Bob Dylan's Torah

It was 1970 and time for the annual ritual. Photographer Peter Simon and I headed to New England Music City in Kenmore Square for the new album by Bob Dylan. “John Wesley Harding” had come out in 1968 and “Nashville Skyline” in 1969, both a retreat from his rock-revolutionary persona, but both remarkable missives, in their own ways, from the Great God Dylan.

And now “Self Portrait,” a double album so it must be a major statement, particularly given the title. A mysterious painting on the cover and a “Nashville Skyline”-ish photo on the back. Intriguing. Then back to his house — he had the better stereo — for the breaking of the cellophane and opening of the album. 

What the opening of the Torah must be for true believers.

Source.

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Apartheid Roads Blues

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(with apologies to the writer/composer of "Neighborhood Bully")


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BD vs. BDS: Bob Dylan Coming to Israel

Reported:

Folk legend Bob Dylan is apparently planning to return to Israel for a concert on June 20, according to a fan-run web site.


The concert has not yet been confirmed, but the web site reported that Dylan would take the stage for one night at the Ramat Gan Stadium, where Canadian singer Leonard Cohen played in 2009.

Dylan has played in Israel twice, in 1987 and 1993. In September 1987, he gave two concerts, on in Tel Aviv's Hayarkon Park and the other at the Sultan's Pool in Jerusalem. In 1993, he played at the Tel Aviv cultural center.

The journal I edited, COUNTERPOINT, conducted an interview with Bob way back when.

And he does look great in tefillin.

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Bob Dylan's Jewish Headgear Looks

A bit Chassidic:

The Hilltop Youth look:

The tefillin look:

With Reb Shlomo Carlebach:

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Baba Di-Lan

From a book review of a new book on Bob Dylan, "Bob Dylan: Prophet, Mystic, Poet" by Seth Rogovoy :

...It should be said that those who labor in the vineyards of Dylanology (and I’m now working on my own take on him) owe Rogovoy a great debt for persuasively tracking so many Dylan words, lines, and allusions to Biblical sources we might not have noticed. But should we therefore expect Dylan to behave himself as a specifically Jewish artist?

Rogovoy tries to make the case that the most important thing about Dylan is his Jewishness. Even when Dylan converted to Christianity, Rogovoy assures us, he—and his songs—were still really Jewish. And for a time—after the explicitly Christian period of the late seventies and early eighties passed—when Dylan was seen on Chabad Lubavitcher telethons and then, more privately at Chabad services all over the map, it seemed like Dylan had finally found his home in the messianic Hasidic sect.

But then, somewhat to Rogovoy’s misfortune, just as this book proclaiming Dylan’s essential Jewishness was about to be published, Dylan’s label made an announcement that even those like myself, no longer easily shocked by Dylan’s choices, found shocking. Rogovoy’s Jewish “prophet, mystic, poet” was going to release a “traditional” Christmas album, entitled “Christmas in the Heart.” Yes, we all know (as Garrison Keillor churlishly reminded us recently) that Jews have written many Christmas songs, but mostly of the secular “White Christmas” sort. In this album Dylan sings real devotional songs, including “O Come All Ye Faithful.”

Could there be a connection between Rogovoy’s book and the Christmas album? Rogovoy is so relentless in nailing every Dylan utterance to some Biblical or Talmudic or kabbalistic source that on some level Dylan might have known he was about to be tied to this procrustean bed of piety for good. This is more metaphorical conjecture than biographical theory. But if you watch the video of “Must be Santa” from the Christmas in the Heart album (by far the best thing on it), you see a Dylanesque guy desperately trying to flee from a Christmas party and hurling himself through the glass of the venue to escape it.

That’s Dylan: more escape artist than preacher.

And this:

For many years I worshiped Dylan. I occasionally referred to him as Baba Di-lan, Aramaic for “our gateway,” to truth and wisdom [בבא דילן]. For some reason, I always wanted him to be very deeply Jewish, whether or not he was. I felt that he saw things in their stark reality, that his prophetic vision penetrated to the core of everything and his poetic genius enabled him to share that with others.

Let Me Introduce You To The "Neighborhood Bully"

Well, the neighborhood bully, he's just one man,
His enemies say he's on their land.
They got him outnumbered about a million to one,
He got no place to escape to, no place to run.
He's the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive,
He's criticized and condemned for being alive.
He's not supposed to fight back, he's supposed to have thick skin,
He's supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.
He's the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land,
He's wandered the earth an exiled man.
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn,
He's always on trial for just being born.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized,
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad.
The bombs were meant for him.
He was supposed to feel bad.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he'll live by the rules that the world makes for him,
'Cause there's a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac.
He's the neighborhood bully.

He got no allies to really speak of.
What he gets he must pay for, he don't get it out of love.
He buys obsolete weapons and he won't be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, he's surrounded by pacifists who all want peace,
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease.
Now, they wouldn't hurt a fly.
To hurt one they would weep.
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Every empire that's enslaved him is gone,
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon.
He's made a garden of paradise in the desert sand,
In bed with nobody, under no one's command.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Now his holiest books have been trampled upon,
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on.
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth,
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health.
He's the neighborhood bully.

What's anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin', they say.
He just likes to cause war.
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed,
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed.
He's the neighborhood bully.

What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers?
Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill,
Running out the clock, time standing still,
Neighborhood bully.

Obama's New Critics: Armenian-Americans

Armenian-Americans were quick to voice their ire.

“In his remarks today in Ankara, President Obama missed a valuable opportunity to honor his public pledge to recognize the Armenian genocide,” Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, said in a statement.

Mr. Obama’s remarks, he said, fell “far short of the clear promise he made as a candidate that he would, as president, fully and unequivocally recognize this crime against humanity.”

During the Parliament speech, Mr. Obama did speak of the Armenia issue, saying, “History is often tragic, but unresolved, it can be a heavy weight.”

He said that the United States “still struggles with the legacies of slavery and segregation, the past treatment of Native Americans.”

Source


But, there's always Bob Dylan:

BF: What struck you about him?

BD: Well, a number of things. He’s got an interesting background. He’s like a fictional character, but he’s real. First off, his mother was a Kansas girl. Never lived in Kansas though, but with deep roots. You know, like Kansas bloody Kansas. John Brown the insurrectionist. Jesse James and Quantrill. Bushwhackers, Guerillas. Wizard of Oz Kansas. I think Barack has Jefferson Davis back there in his ancestry someplace. And then his father. An African intellectual. Bantu, Masai, Griot type heritage - cattle raiders, lion killers. I mean it’s just so incongruous that these two people would meet and fall in love. You kind of get past that though. And then you’re into his story. Like an odyssey except in reverse.

BF: In what way?

BD: First of all, Barack is born in Hawaii. Most of us think of Hawaii as paradise – so I guess you could say that he was born in paradise.

BF: And he was thrown out of the garden.

BD: Not exactly. His mom married some other guy named Lolo and then took Barack to Indonesia to live. Barack went to both a Muslim school and a Catholic school. His mom used to get up at 4:00 in the morning and teach him book lessons three hours before he even went to school. And then she would go to work. That tells you the type of woman she was. That’s just in the beginning of the story.

BF: What else did you find compelling about him?

BD: Well, mainly his take on things. His writing style hits you on more than one level. It makes you feel and think at the same time and that is hard to do. He says profoundly outrageous things. He’s looking at a shrunken head inside of a glass case in some museum with a bunch of other people and he’s wondering if any of these people realize that they could be looking at one of their ancestors.

BF: What in his book would make you think he’d be a good politician?

BD: Well nothing really. In some sense you would think being in the business of politics would be the last thing that this man would want to do. I think he had a job as an investment banker on Wall Street for a second - selling German bonds. But he probably could’ve done anything. If you read his book, you’ll know that the political world came to him. It was there to be had.

BF: Do you think he’ll make a good president?

BD: I have no idea. He’ll be the best president he can be. Most of those guys come into office with the best of intentions and leave as beaten men. Johnson would be a good example of that … Nixon, Clinton in a way, Truman, all the rest of them going back. You know, it’s like they all fly too close to the sun and get burned.

Bob Dylan, Judaism and Israel 1987

I came across this post which discusses the influence of a Rabbi on Bob Dylan, with a picture there of Bob - aka Shabtai Zisel/Zusha ben Avraham v'Rachel Riva and Reb Shlomo Carlebach meeting.

It recalled to me a piece that was published in a periodical I helped edit, together with Rachel Katsman, entitled Counterpoint. Since the issue of Bob Dylan and his relationship with Jews, Judaism and Israel is always relevant, I figured I'd try to scan the article and present it to a new readership.

Here it is, in parts:-






The author, Tuvia Ariel, has since passed away, after many years of managing a great used bookstore on Agrippas Street in Jerusalem and was known as "one-legged Terry" due to an accident in which he lost a leg.

Linked here.
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P.S. And now, with his Nobel Prize for Literature, this post is mentioned here, coming full circle:

Jewish roots

In an article Noble wrote in 1987 for a periodical called Counterpoint, a scanned version of which went online, he wrote that Dylan liked listening to people, explaining that “the reason Bob wanted to get to know me was that I was Jewish and he collects Jews ... His problem with being Jewish himself is that being Jewish is not very American. And Bob Dylan is the most American person I have ever met. Even today, when most of his fans are 40 and over, he represents young America, which is Christian while he is Jewish. And that’s a problem for him and for us.”

“We used to ask him what it was like to be so famous, and he’d say things like ‘when I was young I really wanted it and worked hard for it. But once you get there it’s different, you don’t want it anymore – you’re not the same person who wanted it earlier.’

P.P.S.

Since hopefully a good few people will be perusing this, I just want then to know that I saw Bob Dylan come up David Street in Jerusalem's Old City in 1973 after he visited the Western Wall. I just stared as he walked by, transfixed, fool that I was not to say hello.

Bob Dylan & Chabad

Ages ago



For the heck of it.

A Jew and A Pope

I am a Bob Dylan fan, from way back.

And I thoroughly enjoyed this item:-

Bob Dylan and the Pope were an unlikely double act for a rendition of the 1970s anthem Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door. But even the crowd of pop fans who were brought to their knees by the appearance of Pope John Paul II alongside Dylan could scarcely have imagined the rift that it caused.

The Pope’s chief aide, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was so appalled at the prospect of the pontiff sharing a platform with the “self-styled prophet of pop” that he tried his utmost to stop the spectacle. The Pope overruled him.

The cardinal, now Pope Benedict XVI, says in a book to be published next week that while he agreed with his predecessor on most matters, he did not share his liking for pop music.

At the concert in Bologna, attended by 300,000 people in 1997, Dylan – who was born into a Jewish family in Minnesota but later flirted with Christianity – sang Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door and A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, his antiwar classic, with Forever Young as an encore.

He did not sing his 1963 hit Blowin’ in the Wind, but John Paul II – who was known for his showmanship and media skills – showed his familiarity with the song and based his homily on it in an effort to connect with the audience.

“You say the answer is blowing in the wind, my friend,” he said. “So it is: but it is not the wind that blows things away, it is the breath and life of the Holy Spirit, the voice that calls and says, Come!” This brought the house down. The Pope added: “You ask me how many roads a man must walk down before he becomes a man. I answer: there is only one road for man, and it is the road of Jesus Christ, who said, ‘I am the Way and the Life’.”

Pope Benedict says that he “doubts to this day whether it was right to let this kind of so-called prophet take the stage” in front of the Pope. He admits that John Paul did get across a spiritual message that was otherwise largely “ignored by the entertainment industry”.