Seth Rogovoy is a contributing editor at the Forward. He is the author of Bob Dylan: Prophet Mystic Poet (Scribner, 2009) and the forthcoming 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 Joni Mitchell
Last spring, obituary writers were scrambling when reports began surfacing that Joni Mitchell was knockin’ on heaven’s door. Rumors had the folk-rock poet lying on the floor at home for days before someone found her either unconscious, in a medically induced coma and near death, or out of a coma but paralyzed and unable to…
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Music The Secret Yiddish History of Public Enemy
If ever there was a time we needed to hear from hip-hop legends Public Enemy, this is it. One might assume that the group that gave voice and sound to the frustrations of African-Americans during the Reagan-Bush years would surely have something powerful to say about America in the age of Ferguson and Baltimore, Eric…
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Music The Secret Jewish History of James Taylor
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 the folk-rock singer-songwriter approached the top of Billboard’s album charts was in 1971 when…
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The Schmooze Led Zeppelin of Klezmer Rocks Kulturfest
If there was one musical moment that has stood out so far that encapsulates Kulturfest — the international festival of Yiddish music being played out in venues around Manhattan — it may have been when Polina Shepherd ‘ from Tatarstan by way of the UK — launched into a version of “Avinu Malkeynu.” The audience…
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The Schmooze Tokyo Meets the Lower East Side at Kulturfest
It would have taken the fanciful imagination of a writer like Haruki Murakami or Salman Rushdie to have invented a scrappy quartet of Japanese musicians who play a punk-rock infused brand of Ching Dong — a style of Japanese street music roughly analogous to New Orleans parade band music — until one day the leader…
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The Schmooze The Original Rachel Dolezal Was a Jew Named Mezz Mezzrow
As we all know, Rachel Dolezal was by no means the first white American to take on aspects of African-Americanness in her persona — calling Elvis, is anybody home? — although she will go down in history as one of the all-time champions of the syndrome based on the sheer chutzpahdik of her transformation. But…
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The Schmooze Kulturfest’s Opening Night Lives Up to Its Billing
Kulturfest brands itself as the “first international festival of Jewish performing arts,” and on the festival’s first day, Sunday, it lived up to its billing with a grand opening concert featuring dozens of artists representing at least five continents and a panoply of musical styles. The event was held at Winter Garden at Brookfield Place,…
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Culture 9 Can’t-Miss Shows at Kulturfest
Hard as it is to believe, KulturfestNYC is the first ever international festival of Jewish performing arts of its kind to be held in the Big Apple. These sorts of multi-disciplinary, weeklong events take place all over the world — from Toronto to Krakow — but never before in one week under one umbrella could…
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