Another Jewish Nobel Prize for Literature?
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VOLUME 17 NO.1 JANUARY 2017 journal The Association of Jewish Refugees Another Jewish Nobel Prize for Literature? he awarding of the 2016 Nobel Prize Though they murdered six million for Literature to Bob Dylan did not, In the ovens they fried it is fair to say, resound in the Jewish The Germans now, too Tworld in the same way as the awards made to Have God on their side. Isaac Bashevis Singer in 1978, Saul Bellow in I am surely not alone in finding the 1976, and S.Y. (Shmuel Yosef) Agnon and phrasing here distasteful. Apart from the Nelly Sachs, who shared the prize in 1966. erroneous implication that the six million Dylan transformed popular music, almost perished in ovens, not gas chambers, the single-handedly raising the level of its lyrics crudity of the line ‘In the ovens they fried’ is from the cheerful banalities of 1950s pop jarringly inappropriate. Presumably, Dylan to that of serious culture. He did so by the settled on ‘fried’ because it rhymed with combination of his words and his music, ‘side’, though a more skilful and meticulous conveyed through his unique style of delivery poet would surely have found a superior Bob Dylan and performance. But a pure poet he is not, alternative. More serious, in my view, is the and the committee that awarded him the supposedly morally superior – US forces with crude instrumentalisation of the Holocaust Nobel Prize was arguably mistaken to treat characteristically pithy, powerfully rhythmic to undermine the moral legitimacy of NATO him as if he were. diction: and the Western, anti-Soviet alliance. Criticism Bob Dylan was born Robert Allen of the failure of the Western powers properly Zimmerman on 24 May 1941, to Jewish Oh, the history books tell it to indict German civil servants, industrialists, parents living in Duluth, Minnesota. But They tell it so well army officers and the like for their activities when he changed his name to Bob Dylan, The cavalries charged under Hitler is of course legitimate, as is in tribute to the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, The Indians fell criticism of West German rearmament in and presumably because it fitted his new folk- The cavalries charged the early 1950s and of the hasty integration singing image better, he dropped much of the The Indians died of West Germany into the Western bloc in heritage of the Zimmermans, becoming the Oh, the country was young face of the Communist threat. But to exploit Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan of his 1963 album title. With God on its side. the Holocaust for crudely polemical purposes Jewish elements have not been prominent in The song repeats the lines ‘The cavalries seems to me to betray a loss of moral compass, Dylan’s lyrics, and his allegiance to Judaism charged/ The Indians fell’ with one small but even for lines written in 1964. has been at best patchy: he converted to arresting change, the substitution of the word ‘With God on Our Side’ is of course far Christianity in the late 1970s, though he ‘died’ for ‘fell’. We first view the ‘fallen’ Native from the best of Bob Dylan. But how good was also linked in later years to Chabad and Americans from a comfortable distance, as if is his best, when measured against other great attended the Bar Mitzvahs of his sons. It is their deaths were no more substantial than poets, for example Dylan Thomas, after whom hard to identify Dylan with any organised the staged antics of extras in a Western B he renamed himself? The opening lines of form of religion. movie, only to be confronted head-on with Dylan’s ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ (released 1965) Readers of this journal, for whom the years the bitter reality of their slaughter, its bitterness are among the most famous lyrics in modern of the Third Reich have a special significance, reinforced by the rhyme between ‘died’ and the popular music: may be interested in one direct reference to title phrase ‘God on our side’. Once upon a time you dressed so fine Nazism and the Holocaust in Dylan’s oeuvre, Dylan then runs through the American Threw the bums a dime in your prime, which occurs in the song ‘With God on Our Civil War, the Spanish-American War of 1898, didn't you? Side’, from the album The Times They Are and the two World Wars at a brisk pace. Of People call say 'beware doll, you're bound a-Changin’, released in 1964. The song is a World War I, we learn no more than that ‘it to fall' biting attack on the sanctimonious patriotic came and it went’, a piece of insubstantial filler, You thought they were all kidding you notion that the wars fought by the United and of World War II that ‘it came to an end’. You used to laugh about States of America were morally, indeed That seems a strangely brief treatment of the Everybody that was hanging out divinely, sanctioned, since the USA ‘has god one war in American history in which the USA Now you don't talk so loud on its side’. The song ranges across American might truly be said to have had god, or at least Now you don't seem so proud history from the campaigns against the Native good, on its side. Dylan continues with an About having to be scrounging your next Americans in the nineteenth century to the attack on American claims to the moral high meal First and Second World Wars and the threat ground in the Cold War confrontation with How does it feel, how does it feel? of a nuclear confrontation with the USSR. the godless atheists of the Kremlin, and in so To be without a home The song’s poetic strengths are immediately doing invokes the Holocaust: Like a complete unknown, like a rolling evident. It evokes the tragedy of the destruction We forgave the Germans stone. And then we were friends of the Native American tribes by the – continued on page 2 journal JANUARY 2017 Another Jewish Nobel Prize for Literature? continued HOLOCAUST Here is another justly famous passage: Hey, Mr. Tambourine man, play a song MEMORIAL DAY for me Tuesday 24 January 2017 I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm 2 pm going to at Belsize Square Synagogue, Hey, Mr. Tambourine man, play a song London NW3 4HX for me Please save the date and join us In the jingle jangle morning I'll come for our service to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day. following you. Bob Dylan at the Western Wall Take me on a trip upon your magic We are honoured that His Excellency the German Ambassador, Dr Peter swirling ship How many roads must a man walk down Ammon, will be our guest speaker My senses have been stripped Before you call him a man? on Holocaust Memorial Day 2017. My hands can't feel to grip How many seas must a white dove sail His theme will be ‘How can life go My toes too numb to step Before she sleeps in the sand? on?’ Other speakers will include AJR Wait only for my boot heels to be member Eva Clarke and AJR intern Yes, and how many times must the cannon Merrit Jagusch. wandering balls fly I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for It is essential we know exact Before they're forever banned? numbers for catering – please call to fade The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the Karin Pereira on 020 8385 3070 or Into my own parade wind email [email protected] if you are Cast your dancing spell my way, I promise The answer is blowin' in the wind. planning to attend. to go under it. But stirring though it is, even this appears (‘Mr Tambourine Man’, released 1965) rough-hewn and declamatory beside the First Much as I like the ‘jingle jangle morning’, I World War poet Wilfred Owen’s ‘Anthem for AJR FILM CLUB cannot see that this stands comparison with Doomed Youth’: Please join us at our next Film Club. Dylan Thomas at his majestic best: What passing-bells for these who die as And death shall have no dominion. cattle? Our film showing will be at Dead man naked they shall be one Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Sha’arei Tsedek North London Reform With the man in the wind and the west Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Synagogue, 120 Oakleigh Road North, moon; Can patter out their hasty orisons. Whetstone N20 9EZ The almost unbearable poignancy of on Monday 13 February 2017 When their bones are picked clean and at 12.30pm the clean bones gone, Owen’s sonnet derives in part from the They shall have stars at elbow and foot; juxtaposition of the terminology of religious A lunch of smoked salmon bagels, Danish pastries and tea or coffee will be Though they go mad they shall be sane, ceremonial – a passing bell is the church bell served first. Though they sink through the sea they rung to mark a death, while orisons are prayers A DOUBLE BILL OF VIEWING shall rise again; – with that of the mechanised slaughter of the Though lovers be lost love shall not; Western Front. And when Dylan evokes the CHURCHILL’S GERMAN ARMY And death shall have no dominion. biblical Abraham in ‘Highway 61 Revisited’, This is the unknown story of the Germans who (‘And Death Shall Have No Dominion’, he weaves him into a surreal tapestry of images, fought for Britain.