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 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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Culture The Secret Jewish History of The Who
Editor’s Note: Pete Townshend turns 75 today. In honor of that occasion, we look back at his band’s secret Jewish history, which we first explored in 2015. If The Who’s visionary songwriter and guitarist Pete Townshend had had his way, “Tommy” — an allegory about a traumatized messiah — would not have been the band’s…
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Culture Stevie Wonder’s 9 most Jewish songs
When I learned that Stevie Wonder was turning 70 on May 13, I was actually surprised by how young he is. At a time when his peers who emerged in the early 1960s – people like Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan – are all pushing 80, Wonder is something of a spry young…
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Culture The Secret Jewish History Of “Rock Around The Clock”
It wasn’t the first rock-and-roll song. It wasn’t even the first rock-and-roll hit. But 66 years ago today, Bill Haley and His Comets’ version of “Rock Around the Clock” was released, beginning its long, strange journey to the top of the pop charts, where it became the first rock-and-roll tune to hit the No. 1…
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Culture Who’s narrating Bob Dylan’s prophetic new song? Satan, God or Dylan himself?
In March 1963, Bob Dylan made a demo recording of “Long Time Gone,” one of numerous original songs he wrote for his publishing company, Witmark. In that early song, never officially released, Dylan sings, “I know I ain’t no prophet / And I ain’t no prophet’s son.” Dylan was lyrically riffing on Amos 7:14, where…
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Culture Did Bob Dylan anticipate the coronavirus epidemic in these 12 songs?
In the past few weeks, Bob Dylan has released two new songs, “Murder Most Foul” and “I Contain Multitudes,” which people have combed for references to the current COVID-19 pandemic. Never mind that these songs were most likely written and recorded months if not years before the new coronavirus upended our world. But the fact…
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Culture The Secret Jewish History of William Shakespeare
Editor’s Note: This story originally ran on April 23, 2018. We are revisiting it on the occasion of William Shakespeare’s 456th birthday. Had William Shakespeare never died, he would be turning 456 years old this year, which would put him in biblical territory for longevity. As it turns out, that’s not necessarily such an unusual…
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Culture In the course of his 104 years, he resisted the Nazis, fought against blood libel and became a towering Jewish intellectual
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