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 Bob Dylan channels Walt Whitman and Anne Frank in his new song of himself
Oops, he did it again. In the deep, dark, blackness of the night, the Mystic Oracle of Hibbing let drop a new utterance. Today, we awoke to the new sounds of Bob Dylan’s “I Contain Multitudes,” just three weeks after Dylan stunned believers and non-believers alike with a 17-minute “Waste Land”-like take on the JFK…
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Music No, you’re wrong — Bob Dylan’s 17-minute song is a work of epic genius
Last week in these pages, my esteemed colleague PJ Grisar offered a devastating and at times humorous takedown of Bob Dylan’s recently released new song, “Murder Most Foul.” “[A]s with all things Dylan,” wrote Grisar, “his votaries will be paying Talmudic attention to this new text and finding a deeper meaning than I care to.”…
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Culture Kaddish for Krzysztof Penderecki — a Christian composer with a Jewish soul
World-renowned Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki – widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the last half-century — died on Sunday, March 29, at the age of 86. (While members of his family and inner circle are reported to have had symptoms of the new coronavirus, Penderecki is said to have died from complications…
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Culture How a simple prayer of thanks has taken on new meaning
As soon as I awake these days, before I am even fully conscious, I take stock of how I am feeling. In that twilight state between sleep and wakefulness, I automatically take inventory: Do I feel feverish? No. Do I have flu-like aches, or that all-around crappy feeling of being attacked by a virus, any…
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Culture The secret Jewish history of St. Patrick’s Day
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the Forward on March 16, 2018. If you are Jewish and you feel drawn somehow to celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, there are more than a dozen good reasons why. St. Patrick’s Day and Purim typically appear on the calendar within a few weeks of each other. In…
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Music The Secret Jewish History of James Taylor
Editor’s Note: This story was originally published in the Forward on August 3, 2015. This past June, James Taylor finally achieved a feat that had eluded the folk-pop singer-songwriter for the past 45 years or so: His new album, “Before This World,” shot to No. 1 in its first week of release. The last time…
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Culture Wait — was the U.N. Secretary General quoting Bob Dylan or the Talmud?
Is U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres a Talmudic scholar or a Bob Dylan fan? Or both? Close students of Dylan and the Talmud immediately recognized Guterres’s assessment that “a wind of madness is sweeping the globe” as an allusion to one or both of these original sources. In Tractate Sotah 3a of the Talmud, Reysh Lakish…
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Film & TV There’s something very Jewish about Winnie-The-Pooh — and it’s not just Eeyore’s attitude
Editor’s Note: A.A. Milne, the creator of the “Winnie-the-Pooh” stories was born on this day in 1882. To commemorate his birthday, we look back at the Jewish elements in his work. A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh stories have delighted youngsters for over 90 years, as have their numerous spinoffs as TV shows, cartoons, holiday specials, movies and,…
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