the PDF Print Edition with Photos!

Volume 21•3
Legendary
Musicians
and the
Messiah
E
verybody has heard Bob Dylan’s
music. You may be less well
acquainted with the work of René
Bloch and Helen Shapiro. Bloch played
the famous alto sax solo on Johnny
Otis’s 1940s hit, “Harlem Nocturne.”
Shapiro is the British teen singing
sensation who had the Beatles as her
opening act!
What do these three have in
common, other than being highly
accomplished Jewish musicians? All
have been outspoken in their belief that
Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. Here’s
what they have to say . . .
(continued inside)
Thinking Twice about Bob Dylan
R
obert Allen Zimmerman, better known as Bob Dylan,
shocked his fans in 1965 when he played his electric
guitar at the Newport Folk Festival. But he shocked them even
more when he released his Slow Train Coming album in August
1979. The songs explicitly expressed Dylan’s newfound faith in
Jesus as the Jewish Messiah.
When Dylan debuted songs from his new album
on Saturday Night Live—including “Gotta Serve
Somebody”—Rabbi Laurence Schlesinger, who has written
about Dylan, said he was “completely stunned” at the
words and message.1
The album sleeve of Dylan’s next record, Saved, included
a portion of the Hebrew Scriptures which showed that Dylan
understood that he was still very much a Jew, one who had
now entered into a new covenant with God through Jesus:
“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a
new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of
Judah” (Jeremiah 31:31).
Dylan’s next album, Shot of Love, released in August
1981, mixed secular and religious songs. Robert Hilburn
of the Los Angeles Times asked Dylan why some of those
new songs seemed “only remotely religious.” Dylan replied,
“They’ve evolved. I’ve made my statement, and I don’t think
I could make it any better than in some of those songs. Once
by Matt Sieger
I’ve said what I need to say in a song, that’s it. I don’t want to
repeat myself.”2
That answer didn’t stop the media from speculating that
Dylan was retreating from his profession of faith. In March
1982, New York Magazine published an article entitled, “Dylan
Ditching Gospel?” In the article, an unnamed source speculated
that because Dylan was attending his son’s bar mitzvah instead
of a ceremony to present the Gospel Song of the Year for the
National Music Publishers’ Association, “[his Christian period]
is over.”3 But, as author Scott Marshall pointed out, “It didn’t
seem to occur to them [the rumor-mongers] that Dylan would
choose sharing this special rite of passage with his son over
the opportunity to hand out a music award.”4 The anonymous
source also conjectured that Dylan had only been “testing”
his faith the last three years and had now settled back into
Judaism. As Marshall noted, “The irony, to anyone who was
paying attention to Dylan’s own words during those years, is
that he never left his Jewish roots. All along, he saw a direct
connection between his identity as a Jew and his belief in
Jesus as the Messiah. He could not have been more clear
about that.”5
More speculation arose when Dylan began studies at the
Lubavitch Center in Brooklyn in 1983. But Larry Emond, a pastor
who regularly met with Dylan, observed:
photo: Wikipedia Commons
[Dylan] was one of those fortunate ones who realized that
Judaism and Christianity can work very well together,
because Christ is Yeshua ha’Meshiah [Jesus the Messiah].
And so he doesn’t have any problems about putting on
a yarmulke and going to a bar mitzvah, because he can
respect that. And [he] recognizes that maybe those people
themselves will recognize who Yeshua ha’Meshiah is one
of these days.6
Dylan with Joan Baez in 1962
2
It has become more difficult to discern Dylan’s beliefs going
forward, in part because, as he said, he feels he has covered
that territory already in his songs and doesn’t want to repeat
himself. However, even though his songs since his “gospel
period” are not overtly religious, his lyrics still often address
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spiritual topics (see “Dylan’s Biblical Lyrics” on pages 4–5).
Dylan doesn’t give many personal interviews, and, when he
does, he prefers to focus on his music. He is also is a master of
ambiguity. But he has made some telling comments regarding
issues of faith. When asked in 1984 if he believed in evil,
Dylan replied:
Sure I believe in it. I believe that ever since Adam and
Eve got thrown out of the garden that the whole nature
of the planet has been heading in one direction—
towards apocalypse. It’s all there in the Book of
Revelation, but it’s difficult talking about these things
to most people because most people don’t know what
you’re talking about, or don’t want to listen.7
In an interview with Rolling Stone around that time, the
conversation went like this:
You’re a literal believer of the Bible?
Yeah. Sure, yeah. I am.
Are the Old and New Testaments equally valid?
To me.
...
When you meet up with Orthodox [Jewish] people,
can you sit down with them and say, “Well, you should
really check out Christianity”?
Well, yeah, if somebody asks me, I’ll tell ‘em. But you
know, I’m not just going to offer my opinion. I’m more
about playing my music, you know?8
In a 1985 interview, Dylan had this to say:
We’re all sinners. People seem to think that because their
sins are different from other people’s sins, they’re not
sinners. People don’t like to think of themselves as sinners.
It makes them feel uncomfortable. “What do you mean
sinners?” It puts them at a disadvantage in their mind.
Most people walking around have this strange conception
that they’re born good, that they’re really good people—
but the world has just made a mess of their lives. I have
another point of view. But it’s not hard for me to identify
with anybody who’s on the wrong side. We’re all on the
wrong side, really.
He added:
The Bible runs through all U.S. life, whether people
know it or not. It’s the founding book. The founding
fathers’ book anyway. People can’t get away from it.
You can’t get away from it wherever you go. Those
ideas were true then and they’re true now. They’re
scriptural, spiritual laws. I guess people can read into
that what they want. But if you’re familiar with those
concepts they’ll probably find enough of them in my
stuff. Because I always get back to that.9
Rolling Stone interviewed Dylan again in 1986, and Mikal
Gilmore asked him if he had moved to the right, politically.
Dylan replied:
Well, for me, there is no right and there is no left. There’s
truth and there’s untruth, y’know? There’s honesty and
there’s hypocrisy. Look in the Bible: you don’t see nothing
about right or left. Other people might have other ideas
about things, but I don’t, because I’m not that smart. I hate to
keep beating people over the head with the Bible, but that’s
the only instrument I know, the only thing that stays true.
When asked if a good Christian has to be a political
conservative, Dylan responded:
Conservative? Well, don’t forget, Jesus said that it’s
harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven
than it is for a camel to enter the eye of a needle. I
mean, is that conservative? I don’t know, I’ve heard a
lot of preachers say how God wants everybody to be
wealthy and healthy. Well, it doesn’t say that in the
Bible. You can twist anybody’s words, but that’s only for
fools and people who follow fools.10
In an interview for USA Today in 1989, Edna Gunderson asked
Dylan if he was concerned about his “image.” He replied:
(continued on page 4
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3
It’s been years since I’ve read anything about myself.
[People] can think what they want and let me be.
You can’t let the fame get in the way of your calling.
Everybody is entitled to lead a private life. Then
again, God watches everybody, so there’s nothing
really private, nothing we can hide. As long as you’re
exposing everything to the power that created you,
people can’t uncover too much.11
Of course, that didn’t stop them from trying. In 2001, Howard
Sounes released his book, Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan,
in which he revealed that Dylan returned to womanizing and
drink after becoming a follower of Jesus. But, as Steve Turner wrote
in his review of the book for Christianity Today, “The best advice I got
was from a former sideman of Dylan’s who had converted about the
same time. He said it would be safer to distinguish between the
lyrics of the songs, which would remain true whatever failings
their author may later exhibit, and Dylan himself.”12
Speculation on Dylan’s spiritual state ran rampant when
he did his first television interview in nineteen years, with Ed
Bradley, which aired on 60 Minutes on June 26, 2005. Here is
the portion of the interview that especially raised eyebrows:
Bradley: Why do you still do it? Why are you still out here?
Dylan: It goes back to that destiny thing. I made a bargain
with it a long time ago, and I’m holding up my end.
Bradley: What was your bargain?
Dylan: To get where I am now.
Bradley: Should I ask whom you made the bargain with?
Dylan: With the chief commander.
Bradley: On this earth?
Dylan: (laughing) On this earth and in the world we can’t see.
Hold on! Did Dylan make a deal with the devil? Or is the
“chief commander” God? Christians weighed in. David Cloud
speculated that Dylan’s deal “refers to the old blues concept of
selling one’s soul to the devil, something that Robert Johnson
and others have sung about.”13
Dylan’s Biblical Lyrics
M
ichael J. Gilmour dedicates his book, Tangled up in the Bible: Bob
Dylan & Scripture, “To Bob Dylan, my favorite theologian.” Gilmour,
a professor of English and biblical literature at Providence University College
in Manitoba, Canada, is probably speaking tongue-in-cheek. But there’s no
disputing that biblical allusions have pervaded Dylan’s lyrics.
Gilmour notes that “[Dylan’s] musical influences included gospel,
and much of the American and folk and blues music that proved to
be so formative was infused with biblical imagery as well.”1 In his
early songs Dylan frequently made reference to Jesus and to themes
from both the New Testament and Hebrew Scriptures. That doesn’t
necessarily say anything about his religious persuasions, as he drew
his imagery from many literary sources.
But we do know that after he released Slow Train Coming in 1979,
Dylan declared publicly that he was a follower of Jesus. It is no great stretch
to conclude that the lyrics of his gospel songs matched his personal beliefs.
Dylan also said in a 1995 interview:
If you’re talking just on a scriptural type of thing, there’s
no way I could write anything that would be scripturally
incorrect. I mean, I’m not going to put forth ideas that aren’t
scripturally true. I might reverse them, or make them come
out a different way, but I’m not going to say anything that’s
just totally wrong, that there’s not a law for.2
4
Writer Ronnie Keohane, a Jewish believer in Jesus, notes that after
1979, in live performances of “Masters of War,” Dylan omitted the verse
that includes this line: “Even Jesus would never forgive what you do.”
Keohane explains, “Dylan knows it is not biblically correct, because all
sins that a man can commit are possible for God to forgive.”3
Many of Dylan’s songs on his gospel albums contain apocalyptic
references, such as these from “Are You Ready” on his Saved (1980) album:
Are you ready for the judgment?
Are you ready for that terrible swift sword?
Are you ready for Armageddon?
Are you ready for the day of the Lord?
But even in later songs we find that theme, as in “Things Have Changed,”
(2000) where Dylan sings, “If the Bible is right, the world will explode.”
We also find indications of a personal relationship with God in Dylan’s
lyrics, such as in “‘Til I Fell in Love with You’ from Time Out of Mind (1997),
where he sings, “But I know God is my shield and he won’t lead me astray.”
In 2009, Dylan brought back to his live performances the 1980
song from his Saved album, “Gonna Change My Way of Thinking.”
But Kees de Graaf argued that a person can indeed make a
deal with God—the new covenant that Dylan refers to in the
liner notes to his Saved album and in his “Covenant Woman”
song on that album, where he sings, “I’ve got a covenant too.”14
In 2009, after Dylan released his Christmas album, interviewer
Bill Flanagan, speaking of Dylan’s performance of “O Little Town of
Bethlehem,” told Dylan, “You sure deliver that song like a true
believer.” Dylan responded, “Well, I am a true believer.”15
As Dylan continually points out, his personal life is
between him and God. At live performances he has continued
to sing songs from his “gospel” albums, including, even in
recent years, “I Believe in You,” “Saving Grace,” “Gonna
Change My Way of Thinking” and “Every Grain of Sand.”
So is Dylan still a Jew for Jesus? Only his Creator knows
for sure. But more importantly, what would it take for you to
“change your way of thinking [about Jesus]?” n
Endnotes
1. Scott M. Marshall, Restless Pilgrim: The Spiritual Journey of Bob Dylan (Lake
Mary, FL: Relevant Books, 2002), p. 35.
2. Robert Hilburn, interview with Dylan, Los Angeles Times, November 23, 1980.
3. “Dylan Ditching Gospel?” New York Magazine, March 15, 1982, p. 15.
4. Marshall, op. cit., p. 62.
5. Ibid.
6. “Has Born-again Bob Dylan Returned to Judaism?” Christianity Today, January
13, 1984, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2001/mayweb-only/5-21-45.0.html
7. Mick Brown, “Bob Dylan: ‘Jesus, who’s got time to keep up with the times?’”
The Sunday Times, July 1, 1984, p. 15.
8. Kurt Loder, “Bob Dylan, Recovering Christian,” Rolling Stone, June 21, 1984,
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bob-dylan-recovering-christian-19840621
9. Bill Flanagan, Written in My Soul: Conversations with Rock’s Great
Songwriters (Rosetta Books, LLC, eBook), print book c. 1987.
The lyrics to the original song were quite direct:
Jesus said, “Be ready,
For you know not the hour in which I come.”
He said, “He who is not for Me is against Me,”
Just so you know where He’s coming from.
He does not sing that verse in his more recent version, but he
does add this one:
Every day you got to pray for guidance Every day you got to give yourself a chance
Storms on the ocean, storms out on the mountain, too
Storms on the ocean, storms out on the mountain, too
Oh Lord, you know I have no friend like you
In 2003 Dylan reintroduced “Saving Grace” from the Saved album to
his audiences. He last performed it in 2012. It is clearly about Jesus and
includes this verse:
Well, the death of life, then come the resurrection
Wherever I am welcome is where I’ll be
I put all my confidence in Him, my sole protection
Is the saving grace that’s over me
As recently as 2011, he was still performing “Gotta Serve Somebody,”
perhaps his most direct statement on one’s responsibility before God:
10. Mikal Gilmore, “Dylan: On Recapturing ‘Highway 61’ and Touring with Tom
Petty,” Rolling Stone, July 17, 1986, http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/
positively-dylan-on-recapturing-the-spirit-of-highway-61-and-teaming-up-with-tompetty-and-the-heartbreakers-19860717
11. Edna Gunderson, “He’s Still Painting His Masterpiece,” USA Today,
September 21, 1989.
12. Steve Turner, “Watered Down Love,” Christianity Today, May 21, 2001.
13. David Cloud, “Bob Dylan,” May 29, 2001, http://www.wayoflife.org/index_
files/bob_dylan.html
14. Kees de Graaf, “Bob Dylan’s ‘When the Deal Goes Down’—lyric analysis,
part 1,” http://www.keesdegraaf.com/index.php/158/bob-dylans-when-the-deal-goesdown-lyric-analysis-part-1
15. Bill Flanagan, interview with Dylan, October 2009, http://www.dylancode.
com/styled/
You’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
In 2013 at a live performance in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Dylan
performed for his first time the traditional gospel blues song, “Let
Your Light Shine on Me.” Although he traded off with two guest
vocalists in singing the verses, Dylan chose to sing the most directly
evangelical verse, one that clearly refers to Jesus:
My Lord, he’s done just what he said
Let Your light from the lighthouse shine on me
Heal the sick and raise the dead
Let Your light from the lighthouse shine on me
Does Dylan’s music contain spiritual themes—yes! Is Dylan a
Jewish follower of Jesus? That answer is not as clear. But because
he is Dylan, the speculation will continue . . .
—Matt Sieger
Endnotes
1. Michael J. Gilmour, Tangled Up in the Bible: Bob Dylan & Scripture (New York:
Continuum, 2004), p. 12.
2. Bill Flanagan, Written in My Soul: Conversations with Rock’s Great Songwriters
(Rosetta Books, LLC, eBook), print book c. 1987.
3. Scott M. Marshall, Restless Pilgrim: The Spiritual Journey of Bob Dylan (Lake
Mary, FL: Relevant Books, 2002), p. 180.
5
René Bloch: The Rabbi with Swing by Matt Sieger
I
f you like jazz, you may know the jazz standard, “Harlem
Nocturne.” Johnny Otis’s band made it a big hit in the
1940s, featuring a plaintive lead by 18-year-old alto sax
player René Bloch. Bloch went on to play with big band
leaders Charlie Barnet, Harry James and Perez Prado,
known as the King of the Mambo. Bloch recorded the
number one hits “Cherry Pink and Blossom White” and
“Patricia” with Prado’s band.
But Bloch’s life took a major turn in mid-life. He ended
up as a rabbi of a Messianic congregation—a position he
still holds today at age 90! How does something like that
happen? Well, as Rabbi Bloch explains, “This is God. It
couldn’t have happened any other way.”
René, whose father, Louis, was a French Jew, was
named after famous French aviator René Fonck, a World
War I fighter ace. Louis’s family emigrated from France
to Mexico, where Louis met his wife, Caroline. Louis and
Caroline moved to southeast Los Angeles, where René was
born in 1925, the youngest of four brothers.
Louis taught his boys what he knew of Judaism,
but there were no synagogues in their working-class
neighborhood. Since Louis did not drive, the only way to
the nearest synagogue was by streetcar, a trip the family
made only on the High Holidays. Most of their relatives
lived some distance away, so Passover seders were shared
with neighborhood Jewish friends.
The Blochs listened to jazz, and
clarinetist Artie Shaw became René’s
favorite. The local Conservatory of
Music loaned him a metal clarinet, but
he hated the metal version and returned
it a month later. When René was
twelve, his brother’s friend sold him a
silver saxophone for $25. He loved it,
but wanted a better horn, so he took a
job on Saturdays pumping gas for $2 a
day. His mother felt sorry for him and
helped him buy a Buescher alto sax.
Bloch played by ear for a couple of
years until he went to an audition and
realized he needed to learn to read
music. He found Merle Johnston, an
René, age 23 (center, looking at camera), with Vido Musso’s band (Musso is taking the solo) at the Avalon
accomplished saxophonist and music
all photo courtesy of René Bloch
Ballroom in Los Angeles
René (third from right) with his fellow saxophonists in Prado’s (on left) band
6
“I think God loves jazz!”
photo courtesy of René Bloch
teacher, and told him, “I want to be fast. I want to be the
best saxophone player in the world.” Johnston responded,
“Well, then you’ll have to practice.”1
And practice he did, five to six hours a day in the closet
of his parents’ apartment, nearly driving his father crazy.
René attended Jefferson High School, which has produced
jazz luminaries such as Dexter Gordon and Art Farmer. Like
many Jefferson musicians, René studied under Dr. Samuel
Brown, who had René join the musicians’ union. René fell
in love with the music of Count Basie and began to channel
Basie’s great alto sax player, Preston Love. René was
playing regularly in the stage band at the Lincoln Theater.
When legendary band leader Otis heard René play, he was
thrilled that he played like Love. He hired René.
That led to Bloch’s beautiful recording of “Harlem
Nocturne.” After playing with several other bands, Bloch
got his first taste of Latin jazz with Prado’s group. He
played with Prado for five years, also serving as band
manager, traveling from L.A. to Florida to New York and
even to Spain.
When Prado’s band broke up, René formed his own
band from all of Prado’s musicians—except Prado! That
band recorded several albums, including Mucho Rock
(1958), a combination of Latin and rock, and Mr. Latin
(1962).
During this time, René’s mother was beginning to worry
that her traveling-musician son wasn’t meeting any nice
Jewish girls. So she got a friend to invite René to dinner
to meet the friend’s daughter, Miriam. They hit it off and
were married in 1961. Children followed, two sons and a
daughter. René broke up the band in the mid-1960s and
became assistant to the president of the local musicians’
union.
Most of his friends were Jewish musicians. One of
them, Eddie Carlin, invited René and Miriam to attend
Marriage Encounter, at that time a Catholic-run weekend
event to enhance marriages. People of all faiths were
welcome, and Carlin and his wife had loved it. The Blochs’
marriage was fine, but they decided to go.
During the weekend, a Catholic priest asked the Blochs,
“Are you Jewish?” René was defensive, thinking perhaps
the priest was going to throw them out! Instead, the
priest asked them to read a passage from the Bible. René
recalls, “Every word was exploding in my mind and in my
heart, because he was describing Yeshua (Jesus). So when
I finished that chapter, he said, ‘Who do you think that
René, the rabbi of Beth Shalom congregation
was?’ I said, ‘Well, that’s something from your Christian
Bible.’ And he said, ‘No, that’s from your Bible, Isaiah,
chapter 53.’2 I just kept reading it over and over until it
sunk in—Jesus is the Messiah! He’s the one we’ve been
looking for all this time.”
After returning home, René told Miriam, “There have
to be other Jews who believe this.” René found a listing
in the Yellow Pages for a Messianic congregation, Temple
Beth Emmanuel. He phoned on a Friday, and they invited
the Blochs to a bar mitzvah that evening. “The service was
magnificent,” René remembers. “It was like we finally
found home. We found Jewish believers in Yeshua like us.”
But the change in René was not just in religious
observance.
“There was a change in my countenance,” he says. “All
my friends could see it in my face, and I could feel it in my
heart. I had such joy.”
By 1981, the Blochs felt led to make aliyah. They
completed the paperwork, sold their home, and drove
(continued on page 8)
across country. They stayed with
7
aliyah office told him he’d have to start the
whole process from scratch. That seemed too
daunting, so René moved his family back to
California. There the Blochs began to attend
Beth Shalom congregation in Corona. In 1991
the congregation asked René to serve as their
rabbi. He accepted.
“It was not my idea,” say René. “It was
God’s idea.” He felt that all the teaching
he had received the last ten years at Beth
Messiah had prepared him for this role.3
Beth Shalom remains spiritually healthy.
René’s son Robert also serves as rabbi there
and has taken on many of the responsibilities.
In 2013 Beth Shalom purchased a synagogue,
previously the home of a Conservative
congregation. René still plays his horns,
René guides his granddaughter Bethany through the Torah portion of her bat mitzvah
recording the album Winds of the Spirit in
2009. He plays music in his congregation as
friends in Rockville, Maryland, ready to depart from New
well, weaving jazz into the worship.
York City to Israel in a few weeks. But during that time, René
“I play what I feel in my heart,” he says. “I think God
hooked up with musicians Paul Wilbur and Marc Chopinsky
appreciates it. I think God loves jazz.”4 n
from Beth Messiah Congregation in Rockville. The trio bonded
Endnotes
quickly and aliyah was put on hold—for ten years! The three
1. The Idelsohn Society interview with René Bloch, https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=tBhZ1KuQ1WI
musical friends became the band Israel’s Hope and produced
2. PCU Live interview with René Bloch, https://www.youtube.com/
two albums. Arise O Lord was nominated for a Dove award.
watch?v=A6U9ir2tGWg
When Wilbur left for Chicago for a worship leader position,
3. Ibid.
4. Idelsohn Society interview.
René thought it was finally time to head for Israel. But the
Read the story of British pop star Helen Shapiro! Enjoy an
interview with Shai Sol Hever, a young Messianic Jewish
singer who created controversy on the Israeli version of
American Idol. Learn why aspiring Jewish punk rocker Valerie
Cymes turned to Jesus.
Get a free CD by the young
Jewish folk-rock group,
New Light Ruins! All at
j4j.co/issues21v03
What about other Jewish
people who have been
challenged with this same
issue? Check out ShoutOut
to find out. Jewish journeys
of faith, streaming now at
jewsforjesus.org/shoutout
8
photo public domain
photo courtesy of René Bloch
(continued from page 7)
Helen Shapiro and John Lennon;
Shai Sol Hever, left
photo courtesy of Shai Sol Hever