Published: 1 February 2022
Last updated: 4 March 2024
A 1971 TV interview, never broadcast, reveals that Dylan felt the public would not have accepted a Jewish singer trying to replicate the songs of Christians like Woody Guthrie
PEOPLE SOMETIMES ASSUME that Bob Dylan changed his name for artistic reasons; that ditching ‘Zimmerman’ allowed the folk star to morph into a different person on stage and explore aspects of himself that would have otherwise been unreachable.
We like to imagine that, like David Bowie, Dylan’s decision to change his name was grounded in creativity, not fear. And while that’s a much more palatable idea, it completely underplays the prevalence of antisemitism in post-war America and the impact that anti-Jewish sentiment had on some of the 1960s most prominent musicians, actors, and entertainers.
In 1971, Bob Dylan gave a TV interview that was never broadcast and was subsequently lost. It was only in 2020 that the transcripts resurfaced. What the interview reveals is that Dylan felt the American public wouldn’t have accepted a Jewish folk singer trying to replicate the songs of blue-collar Christians like Woody Guthrie.
This, he suggests, was the main motivation behind his decision to abandon his Jewish surname. “I mean, it wouldn’t’ve worked if I’d changed the name to Bob Levy. Or Bob Neuwirth. Or Bob Doughnut,” he began.
“A lot of people are under the impression that Jews are just money lenders and merchants. A lot of people think that all Jews are like that. Well, they used to because that’s all that was open to them. That’s all they were allowed to do”.
It wasn’t just Dylan who felt motivated to change his name to get on. A whole generation of Jewish musicians and entertainers adopted American surnames. Lou Reed, for example, changed his name from Rabinowitz; while Melvin Kaminsky (Mel Brooks), Allan Konigsberg (Woody Allen), and Jeffry Ross Hyman (Joey Ramone), also decided to keep their Jewish roots a secret.
Photo: Bob Dylan in London, in 1965 (AP)
