How many Kol Nidres must one man hear before you can call him a Jewish folksinger?

by Izzy Grinspan

Those who caught last night’s installment of No Direction Home, 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—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,” Seth Rogovoy argues that Dylan’s lyrics betray a Jewish influence.  I want to know if his music does as well.