“Seth Rogovoy offers a unique perspective that examines Bob Dylan within the spectrum of Jewish religious history . . . an entertaining read; a book to add to the shelf of your Bob Dylan library.”
—Suzanne Vega
“Helps fill in one more piece of an endless and endlessly fascinating puzzle.”
— Alan Light, frequent contributor to The New York Times and former senior writer at Rolling Stone
“Required reading for those who seek to understand not only Dylan but the meaning of their own life.”
—Rabbi Alan Berg, Portland, Oregon
“A bold attempt to explain why Dylan so often sounds like my zeyde.”
—Michael Wex, author of Born to Kvetch and How To Be A Mentsh (And Not A Shmuck)
March 16th, 2010
The tourism bureau of the Iron Range, the region of Northern Minnesota where Bob Dylan grew up, has launched a campaign ostensibly to lure the famed rock poet back home for a performance.
Presumably what the bureau also had in mind in launching a new website, Come Home Bob Dylan, was garnering a little publicity for the isolated area renowned for its stark beauty and cold winters.
The website includes an online petition calling on Dylan to come home to Hibbing, Minn., as well as sharing pages for photos and video, and links to informational pages on Hibbing and the Iron Range.
February 23rd, 2010
In “Bob Dylan: Messiah or Escape Artist?,” his review of BOB DYLAN: Prophet Mystic Poet, in the premiere issue of the new Jewish Review of Books, critic Ron Rosenbaum - a columnist for Slate and the author of Explaining Hitler and The Shakespeare Wars, who is working on a book on Bob Dylan for Yale University Press – hails Seth Rogovoy’s “exemplary research” and says that “...those who labor in the vineyards of Dylanology … owe Rogovoy a great debt for persuasively tracking so many Dylan words, lines, and allusions to Biblical sources we might not have noticed.”
Rosenbaum goes on to say that “Rogovoy’s source-hunting is so relentless, one can only bow to his ingenuity as he pins just about every Dylan line you can think of, like a dead butterfly, to its biblical source box. I was particularly impressed by the wealth of allusions to the Davidic stories he finds.”
He hails the book’s “…deepening of the detailed picture now emerging of Dylan’s Jewish upbringing. Rogovoy shows that the Zimmermans were at ‘the center of Jewish life in Hibbing,’ and that young Robert’s bar mitzvah broke attendance records at the local hotel.”
Read the text of the full review here.
…those who labor in the vineyards of Dylanology … owe Rogovoy a great debt for persuasively tracking so many Dylan words, lines, and allusions to Biblical sources we might not have noticed.
February 23rd, 2010
Bernard Zalon is a printmaker in New York City specializing in etchings. He does great work – a lot of it inspired by his urban surroundings – which you’ll see when you visit his website.
In The Heights by Bernard Zalon
Zalon contacted me recently to share one of his newest creations, called In the Heights, which on the surface seems to capture a typical scene out front of 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, which some may recognize as the world headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish outreach movement.
The artist honors me by telling me that while he was working on the piece, he heard me being interviewed on a radio program talking about my book, excerpts of which he had read online. “So I was inspired to add something. I just finished it, and I think you will appreciate it,” he wrote.
I am immensely humbled by Zalon’s generosity. I can’t think of a better way to have my own work appreciated than by having it somehow inspiring or becoming a part of another’s — especially someone with the talent and vision of Zalon.
If you look closely at the etching, you can see a Dylan-esque figure — perhaps Bob Dylan himself — hanging out among the Hasidim.
Detail from "In the Heights" by Bernard Zalon
February 22nd, 2010
The blogger Whole Phamily, who describes the blog as “An exploration about the connectivity of names, people, and ideas in the Jewish community and beyond,” takes note of BOB DYLAN: Prophet Mystic Poet, saying that “there is no denying that Dylan is a part of the Whole Phamily and he has his Yiddishkeit to thank a bissel. This book explores some previously unrevealed truths of the Jewish foundation of some of Dylan’s songs.”
there is no denying that Dylan is a part of the Whole Phamily and he has his Yiddishkeit to thank a bissel. This book explores some previously unrevealed truths of the Jewish foundation of some of Dylan’s songs.
February 17th, 2010
Veteran music journalist and broadcaster Mike Regenstreif says that BOB DYLAN: Prophet Mystic Poet offers readers “a fascinating perspective on Dylan and his songs” in his review of the book that ran in the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin and is reprinted on his own blog.
