Forever young?
As a lifelong Bob Dylan fan (my wife suggests I spell his name “B-b”) I thought I knew all there was to know about my idol, but the New Jersey Jewish News has offered a fresh tidbit: Dylan was 24 when he became bar mitzva! According to a Kolbo item in the Oct. 3 issues (“House of the rising son”), Dylan became a man in 1963, which would be 24 years from his birth on May 24, 1941. So when he was changing the world of music, and the inner life of fans like me, he still found time to sneak back to Hibbing and recite the haftara from the bima. I knew about his (brief and temporary) conversion to Christianity, and his ongoing involvement with the Lubavitchers, even appearing on their telethon (honest: I’ve seen the tape). But this is yet a new element in the Dylan mystique — perhaps the inspiration for “Forever Young”?
Martin Golan
Verona
(Editor’s Note: Bob Dylan became a bar mitzva in 1954.)
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