Suitably seasonal – Bob Dylan reads “A Visit From St. Nicholas” (“The Night Before Christmas”), a poem first published, anonymously, in 1823, and later attributed to Clement Clarke Moore, who claimed authorship in 1837. (Some commentators now believe that the poem was actually written by one Henry Livingston Jr.).
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…”
from Mad magazine’s (Jan 1960 parody – New Mad “Hip” Version -“‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the pad/Not a hipster was stirring not even old Dad..”
Thanks. Loved listening to Bob read this. A good up-Beat alternative to “The Junkie’s Last Christmas”.
Many Jews have a bit of a problem with the myths surrounding something called Christmas. The idea of a Roman Catholic Church Saint (transformed several times in different cultures) is not “Jewish” of course. But Bob Zimmerman seems to have moved into a different frame of mind than various Jewish thinkers for whom their Judaic heritage (regardless of which version) became central. “Bob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman (his Hebrew name is Shabtai Zisl ben Avraham)[1][14][15] at St. Mary’s Hospital on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota.[16] Dylan’s paternal grandparents, Anna Kirghiz and Zigman Zimmerman, emigrated from Odessa in the Russian Empire (now Ukraine) to the United States after the 1905 pogroms against Jews. His maternal grandparents, Florence and Ben Stone, were Lithuanian Jews who had arrived in the US in 1902.[17] Dylan wrote that his paternal grandmother’s family was originally from the Kağızman District of Kars Province, northeastern Turkey.[18]
Dylan’s father Abram Zimmerman and his mother Beatrice “Beatty” Stone were part of a small, close-knit Jewish community.[19][20][21] They lived in Duluth until Dylan was six, when his father contracted polio and the family returned to his mother’s hometown of Hibbing, where they lived for the rest of Dylan’s childhood, and his father and paternal uncles ran a furniture and appliance store.”
Was Bob Dyland “Anti-Semitic” or just a little bit “antisemitic” (in a sense)? I don’t think so. In fact, many great Jewish thinkers were not all that Jewish. I think of this at this time of year, especially. He did not want to put the Roman Catholic Mass back into a “holy days” celebration. Or am I wrong? Perhaps I am wrong about this in some specific way. I am often wrong. It is in the nature of “science” (Wissenschaften) to be able to recognize one’s mistakes and that could take us into a discussion of Karl Popper and Ludwig Wittgenstein! Ha ha