Seth Rogovoy, a contributing editor at the Forward, is the author of Bob Dylan: Prophet Mystic Poet (Scribner) and Within You Without You: Listening to George Harrison (Oxford University Press).
Seth Rogovoy
By Seth Rogovoy
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Culture Remembering Eddie Van Halen and his Jewish mentor
Eddie Van Halen, the iconoclastic rock guitarist best known for his instrumental contributions to his namesake band, has died after a year-long bout with throat cancer. Van Halen, who in 1972 founded the group Van Halen with his brother, Alex Van Halen, was 65. Eddie’s flashy guitar-playing, along with frontman David Lee Roth’s outrageous, wild-man…
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Culture Has Donald Trump been listening to Blue Oyster Cult?
Has President Donald Trump been listening to Blue Oyster Cult during his four-day stay at Walter Reed Medical Center, where he has been under medical care since Friday as the world’s most famous coronavirus patient? How else to explain yet another of his inscrutable tweets? This afternoon, the Tweeter-in-Chief told the world “Don’t be afraid…
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Culture Just how Jewish are the top 500 albums of all time?
Rolling Stone magazine recently updated its list of the Top 500 albums of the rock era for the first time since 2003. This time around, the list includes 50 albums by Jewish artists and groups — depending on how you define “Jewish artists and groups,” of course. For example, were the Band — whose main…
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Culture Is suburbia the American dream — or its worst nightmare?
On the very first page of “The Sprawl: Reconsidering the Weird American Suburbs,” author Jason Diamond describes feeling ambivalent about admitting you’re from the suburbs. “If you’re from Long Island … you’ll tell anyone who asks you’re from New York,” he writes, to which I reply, “Guilty as charged.” Diamond himself has always claimed Chicago…
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Culture On his 73rd birthday, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s secret Jewish history
Arnold Schwarzenegger, who turns 73 on Thursday, July 30, had, at best an ambivalent and, at worst a difficult relationship with his father, Gustav. A police chief and former member of the Nazi party, Gustav was a strict disciplinarian who favored Arnold’s older brother, Meinhard. Gustav supposedly harbored doubts that he was even Arnold’s biological…
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Culture On Mick Jagger’s 77th birthday, the secret Jewish history of the Rolling Stones
In 2015, when The Rolling Stones took the stage at HaYarkon Park in Tel Aviv, that event represented more than just the world’s greatest and longest-running rock band’s first concert in Israel. It also marked one small victory in the war against a rock ’n’ roll boycott of Israel being waged by some English rockers, mostly…
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Culture On Don Henley’s birthday, the Secret Jewish History of The Eagles
Editor’s Note: On today, Don Henley’s 73rd birthday, we take stock of his band’s Jewish affinities. Critics have always noted a somewhat acerbic, downright cynical attitude running through many of The Eagles’ best-known songs. But perhaps overlooked has been a narrative running through the band’s work from its very beginnings through its final recordings that…
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Culture The secret Jewish history of Santana
Carlos Santana isn’t Jewish. But that doesn’t stop the Latin-rock bandleader and guitar hero — who turns 73 on Monday, July 20, 2020 — from speculating on his Jewish roots, performing in Israel, peppering his dialogue with choice bits of Yiddish, or conversing with a Kabbalistic angel. Santana, whose million-selling namesake band was founded in…
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