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# How many Kol Nidres must one man hear before you can call him a Jewish folksinger?
- URL: https://www.jewsrock.org/how-many-kol-nidres-must-one-man-hear-before-you-can-call-hi/
- Published: 2005-11-01T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-20T22:08:34.000Z
- Author: JewsRock
- Tags: Blog

*by Izzy Grinspan*

Those who caught last night’s installment of [No Direction Home](http://www.pbs.org/previews/american%5Fmasters%5Fdylan/?ref=jewsrock.org), PBS’s documentary about Bob Dylan, will note that it’s not a very Jewish film. Young Zimmerman definitely looks Jewish in his newboy cap—actually, he looks a lot like Fievel Mousekewitz, the plucky rodent hero of [An American Tail](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090633/?ref=jewsrock.org)—but his early years weren’t terribly Hebraic. Or maybe that’s the wrong choice of words, since songs like “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” certainly evoke Biblical emotions. As the Scorsese-directed film emphasizes, Dylan’s primary influences were American folk music and American blues, neither of which are Jewish in origin. But you have to wonder whether the solemnity and minor-key darkness of Jewish liturgical music, as well as the “Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll”-like repetition in the chanted prayers, had any effect on Dylan’s ear. In our article “[Talkin’ Hava Nagilah Blues,](http://www.jewsrock.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=words.view&wordid=E0736A45-3930-4C77-AC40547568A63145)” Seth Rogovoy argues that Dylan’s lyrics betray a Jewish influence. I want to know if his music does as well.