Jewish Dylan
In your rundown of Bob Dylan’s most Jewish songs (“The Bard’s 10 Most Jewish Songs,” October 5) you forgot “Father of Night” and “Drifter’s Escape.” The first is a doxology to an awe-inspiring God much like the God of Judaism; in the second, the drifter (a wanderer, like the Jewish people) is accused of an unknown crime and saved by divine intervention.
As for the name Zimmerman being German and therefore not Jewish: It’s both, because of the common descent of Yiddish and Modern German from Middle High German. Alfred Rosenberg was the head of the Nazi foreign policy office and a vicious anti-Semitic propagandist, and we all know how common a Jewish name Rosenberg is. And as my sister once asked our father, “You mean there could be a Nazi named Weiss?”
Miriam Weiss
Queens, N.Y.
Why I became the Forward’s Editor-in-Chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
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