Is Bob Dylan’s Judaism blowin’ in the wind?: Author of upcoming biography lectures at Stanford

by janet silver ghent, correspondent

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In 1977, Ron Rosenbaum — a self-described “nervous and nerdy” freelance writer for Playboy magazine — headed to the backlot of Burbank Studios to interview Bob Dylan. Among other things, they discussed folk music, the ’60s, God and Judaism.

The singer-songwriter told Rosenbaum he experienced “a heartfelt God,” but added, “I’ve never felt Jewish. I don’t really consider myself Jewish or non-Jewish.”

Fast forward to 2011. Rosenbaum, now a Slate columnist who has authored books on Shakespeare and Hitler, is writing a biography of Dylan for Yale University Press’ Jewish Lives series, and Stanford professor Steven Zipperstein is the co-editor. The book is due out in about a year.

Last week, Rosenbaum gave a lecture at Stanford on “Bob Dylan’s God Problem — and Ours,” sponsored by the Taube Center for Jewish Studies and the Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto.

Ron Rosenbaum

The overriding question seemed to be: How Jewish is Dylan? Born Robert Zimmerman in 1941, Dylan fueled counterculturalism in the ’60s and then turned evangelical Christian in the ’70s — but in the ’80s played “Hava Negillah” on harmonica during a Chabad telethon.

During an interview over coffee at the Sheraton Palo Alto, Rosenbaum noted that Dylan had an impact “on Jews, on Jewish culture — and some of that comes from the fact of his Jewish origin.”

But is the writer of “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’” an observant Jew?

“It’s a difficult question to answer,” Rosenbaum said. “If you read the Internet, there are all sorts of sightings of Dylan at Chabad-Lubavitcher services. Does that mean he’s become one of them? I don’t know. Does that mean any of [the sightings] are verifiable? There are enough of them to make you think there’s something to it. But who knows? He could be exploring, experimenting, whatever. He’s certainly no longer the scolding Christian that he was for a few years.”

At the time of the 1977 Playboy interview, Dylan, who recently turned 70, was going through a difficult divorce and child custody battle, turning to Christianity and issuing “Slow Train Coming” and “Saved,” which Rosenbaum called “hard-core Christian albums.”

Dylan’s departure from Christianity “was sort of gradual,” he said. “It’s not like he formally abjured it. It just seemed to slip into the past.” In fact, Rosenbaum sees a profoundly Jewish thread woven throughout Dylan’s life, including the ’60s years.

“In my lecture, I situate Dylan within the largely Jewish black humor movement, mostly literary, of people from Lenny Bruce to Joseph Heller, people who took a black-humored, absurdist view of the world. If you look at that more closely, I think that black-humored, absurdist view of the world is derived from the fact of the Holocaust — its inexplicability, [and] the fact that Jews have always prayed to a God to protect them.”

A 1964 song, the biting “With God on Our Side,” refers to the “murdered 6 million” and the ovens, chastising the United States for forgiving the Germans. The following year, in “Highway 61 Revisited,” Dylan took on both God and Abraham, “questioning the great sacrificial story at the heart of Judaism,” the binding of Isaac.

Said Rosenbaum: “Dylan is asking, why should God be so insecure that he needs a man to kill his son or to offer to kill his child to show his loyalty? It becomes an egotistical demonstration of power in Dylan’s rewriting of it.”

While Kabbalah scholar Daniel Matt “thought Dylan was a gateway to the truth,” Rosenbaum’s own attraction to Dylan is “more a kind of literary cultural appreciation.” The former Yale English major takes an eclectic path in his writing, with topics from literature to history. His latest book is “How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III.” He also edited a 700-page anthology on contemporary anti-Semitism titled “Those Who Forget the Past.”

This past summer, he took his alma mater to task in a Slate column titled “Yale’s New Jewish Quota: The university’s shameful decision to kill its anti-Semitism institute.”

As far as his own Judaism, Rosenbaum, who grew up Reform on Long Island, N.Y., “came to love everything Jewish,” but he is not an observant Jew. “Those who do believe fervently should be offering better answers. I’d like to be persuaded.”

Comments

Posted by david desmond
11/04/2011 at 08:58 AM

jewishness of dylan

the question of jewishness is complex. Ond can be born a Jew but never practice the religion. One can convert to the Jewish religion but you can not become a semite. I also know Jews who believe Jesus is the messiah but they don’t believe that he is God or the trinity. Quite frankly, I think Dylan enjoys many aspects of his Jewish culture and religion including Chabad. But he also sees Jesus as the Messiah. Far too many Jews would criticize him in this, Jews who don’t even believe in God, many living in Israel. Maimonides believed in both a literal Messiah and a resurrection and the world to come. Today we could say most Jews don’t. I think Dylan does. And I think he has always been fascinated by Jesus. But Dylan was turned off by alot of crackpots in the so called Christian movement. They wanted to use him as an example of a Jew who “converted.” I don’t think Dylan ever converted to anything. But believing in the binding of Isaac, and in Jesus is not a contradiction. As a Jew, Dylan is open minded and can hang out with Chabad or with Christians. But he doesn’t want to be put into a box. He shut up because of that. But he still sings his Jesus music and sings Christian spirituals. He put out an interesting Christmas record. So many Jews who have no belief at all criticize him. But it’s ok for them to be buddists or pornographers or free love kibbutzniks. I don’t think anyone should be putting their nose into his business or his personal belief. He’s lived a hard and demanding life, and I think he sees through most of the critics and scholars. Give the guy a break. And read some Maimonides and bible. As for these college programs in antisemitism. What a joke. I can see Woody Allen going to a job interview and telling the person, Well, I can’t do anything but I have a degree in Antisemitism from Indiana University. Too many people are living off of dead Jews and it makes me sick.

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Posted by ohmercy
11/05/2011 at 12:08 PM

following the Jewishness of Jesus?

I was trying to reply to the comment by David Desmond above but I couldn’t get to anyplace to do so with the link provided.

Anyway- You said, David, what I felt as I was reading the article. Almost any time I read an article, column or book by those professing to “know” what Bob Dylan means, thinks, is expressing or how he is living his life I find myself getting annoyed. I rarely have been able to finish many of the books written by the “Dylan experts” . Christopher Ricks, Clinton Heylin and Michael Grey leave me cold. Greil Marcus - eh- he is sometimes interesting but again the author seems to believe he really knows and is offering definitive authoritative information rather than projections and supposition.

What i realized about Mr. Bob awhile back is that we project our own particular world view onto him and our own questioning psyches. He seems to serve as a many faceted symbolic figure in a way. Psychologists see him and write about him from their perspective. Historians see him through an historical lens. I’ve even seen an article describing /analyzing"Visions of Johanna” as sitting through Zen Sesshin!(sp) His lyrics seem to point to Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, political activism, love, (unrequited and/or fulfilled) psychological states and dreams and/or any multilayered combination of those and many other qualities. It all depends on who is listening. What they hear is a projected meaning from within themselves. Their/our interpretations and projections say more about ourselves than about Mr. Bob. And that is as it should be.

To my eye Bob seems to be quite clearly following the path that God calls him to. I see nothing in his work that proclaims he has abdicated from Christianity or that he has re-embraced Judaism- and there was nothing that ever proclaimed he had renounced his Jewishness. He seems to be on the path of the solitary sojourner seeking to fulfill the mission he feels he has been given. Perhaps he is following the Jewishness of Jesus as he continues expressing his concern for the forsaken, the forgotten, the oppressed, the suffering, the least of these.

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Posted by theironhorse
11/05/2011 at 04:17 PM

To those who have ears, let them hear

For over thirty years I have been puzzled at how some Dylan fans simply ignore his lyrics and the songs he performs.It seems they refuse to accept the fact that he remains a follower of that rebel rabbi from Nazareth.

“Someday I’ll stand beside my king.”

~Thunder on the Mountain

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Posted by Bailey
11/06/2011 at 05:31 AM

Bob Dylan

During an interview for his Christmas album that was released a couple of years ago, the interviewer asked Bob about the fervent religious nature of ths songs he sings on that record (concerning the birth of Jesus Christ) Bob answers most clearly “I am a believer.”

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Is Bob Dylan’s Judaism blowin’ in the wind?: Author of upcoming biography lectures at Stanford

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