“a must-read for pointy-headed Dylanologists” – Winnipeg Free Press

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

Writing about BOB DYLAN: Prophet, Mystic, Poet, Morley Walker of the Winnipeg Free Press said, “This tome, about the influence Dylan’s Jewish roots play in his songs, joins Christopher Ricks’s Visions of Sin as a must-read for pointy-headed Dylanologists. No matter how obscure the Old Testament reference, rest assured that Rogovoy has unearthed it. “

New review written by an Italian poet from the 21st century: ‘That song and poetic free a jew named Bob Dylan’

Monday, May 31st, 2010

A new review of Bob Dylan: Prophet Mystic Poet appears in an edition of Mosaico, apparently a Jewish journal in Italy. The review is in Italian, but you can get the gist of it — or ask Google to translate it for you, which gives you the funny title above.

Apparently the review calls the writer a “scholar” (studioso) whose “attentive analysis” shows how the Talmud, Torah and Kabbalah are for Dylan inexhaustable sources of inspiration and wisdom that he uses with diverse approaches during his entire career. I’ll take it.

“In light of Dylan’s lifetime of spiritual and religious seeking, there might be a second level of meaning in the blood on these tracks” – PopMatters

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

“The question of Dylan’s religious affiliation has been brought back to the forefront because of Seth Rogovoy’s book, Bob Dylan: Prophet Mystic Poet. In light of Dylan’s lifetime of spiritual and religious seeking, there might be a second level of meaning in the blood on these tracks; perhaps he is also alluding to the blood of sacrifice, known to him in the sacrificial system of the Hebrew Scriptures.” – Jim Mello, “Bargaining for Salvation,” PopMatters

“those who labor in the vineyards of Dylanology … owe Rogovoy a great debt” – Ron Rosenbaum

Tuesday, 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.

“This book explores some previously unrevealed truths of the Jewish foundation of some of Dylan’s songs.” – Whole Phamily

Monday, 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.