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 Robert De Niro
Actor Robert De Niro, who turns 75 years old August 17, is perhaps best known for playing the roles of Italian gangsters and assorted crazies in his much lauded, 55-year career in film. An entire subgenre of his work, however, has been devoted to portraying Jewish characters: gangsters and otherwise. Far from being typecast in…
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Culture The Secret Jewish History of the Rocky Horror Picture Show
“Rocky Horror,” which opened in London cinemas on this day in 1975 is the cultural phenomenon that simply refuses to die. Rather, since its first incarnation as a 1973 London stage musical, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” has been continuously reborn on the silver screen, in subsequent Broadway stage productions, and, in 2016, as a…
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Culture The Secret Jewish History Of Woodstock
This August marks the 50th anniversary of the original Woodstock festival, which took place in Bethel, N.Y., on August 15-17, 1969. Woodstock lives on in memory as the culmination of the 1960s counterculture, the greatest rock festival of all time, and just plain and simply as shorthand for “the Sixties,” as in “the Woodstock generation.”…
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Culture The Secret Jewish History of The Rolling Stones
About five years ago, The Rolling Stones — who performed their first ever concert in London on this date in 1992 — 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…
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Culture The Secret Jewish History Of ‘Shaft’
Hold on. Before you get all “cultural appropriation” on me, hear me out. The character “Shaft” is not now, nor has he ever been, Jewish. Nor has he been portrayed by Jews in film or TV, nor was he conjured by a Jewish artist. Early on in his fictional life, however, Shaft was among Jews,…
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Culture The Secret Jewish History Of ‘A Star Is Born’
On this day in 1899, film director George Cukor was born. Today, we look back on the history of one of his most famous projects. Like the cicadas that spend most of their lives underground, emerging only every 13 or 17 years (and how they decide is for you to know and me to find…
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Music The Secret Jewish History Of Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue
There is a telling moment in “Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story,” a new film by Martin Scorsese that played in theaters for one night only on June 11, before commencing to stream on Netflix on June 12. David Mansfield, who at age 19 played mandolin and pedal-steel guitar on the 1975 Rolling Thunder…
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Culture Bob Dylan’s 10 Most Jewish Songs
Bob Dylan turns 78 today. In honor of that auspicious occasion, we revisit his 10 most Jewish songs.” While Bob Dylan has, throughout his life and career, engaged in all sorts of mythologizing and playful biographical falsification, it has never been in the service of denying his heritage. This son of a middle-class appliance salesman…
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