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 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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Culture On Patrick Stewart’s 80th birthday, his secret Jewish history
Actor Patrick Stewart, who turns 80 on Monday, July 13, 2020, isn’t Jewish. But that didn’t stop him from assuming — incorrectly — for well over half his life that a mohel, or someone with a very sharp implement, had removed his foreskin shortly after birth. On a TV talk show in 2017, Stewart revealed…
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Culture Dylan painted his masterpiece — the next year he painted another one
It’s as predictable as death and taxes. Bob Dylan releases a new album and critics hyperventilate that it is his best since his masterful 1975 album, “Blood on the Tracks.” The latter was an acoustic song cycle largely about the dissolution of a marriage (his marriage?), and it does indeed stand the test of time…
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Culture John Wayne certainly had a racist history — does he have a Jewish one?
On the morning of Monday, June 29, 2020, President Donald J. Trump tweeted, “Can anyone believe that Princeton just dropped the name of Woodrow Wilson from their highly respected policy center. Now the Do Nothing Democrats want to take off the name John Wayne from an airport. Incredible stupidity!” It’s no surprise that Trump would…
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Culture With an epic new album, Bob Dylan finally delivers his Nobel lecture
When Bob Dylan finally responded to the Swedish Academy that awarded him the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature with the required lecture, about six months after the fact, he did so with a rambling, recorded monologue that at its best detailed some of his literary and musical influences and at its worst was a parody…
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Culture Happy 78th Birthday To Paul McCartney, The Jewish Beatle
About seven years ago, Sir Paul McCartney, who turns 78 today, released an album called “New.” But given the artist’s love affair with all things Jewish for the past half-century — including collaborators, business associates, girlfriends and wives — the title could well be meant as a transliteration of the all-purpose Jewish word nu. Recently,…
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Culture Your top 9 Yiddish antifa anthems: a revolutionary playlist
The Yiddish roots of antifa – the anti-fascist movement whose precursors date back at least as far as opposition to the Russian czar – have been well documented. They are also enshrined in a canon of Yiddish antifa songs – songs of resistance, anarchism, revolution, and workers’ rights – that listeners might find eerily resonant…
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Culture The Secret Jewish history of The Rolling Stones
Editor’s Note: The Rolling Stones’ drummer Charlie Watts turns 79 today. In honor of that auspicious occasion, we return to this 2014 article about the band’s Jewish influences. In 2014, 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…
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