Harry Freedman is the author of the new book Bob Dylan: Jewish Roots, American Soil. His other books include Shylock's Venice: The Remarkable History of Venice's Jews and the Ghetto. He lives in London.
Q: What inspired you to write a book focusing on Bob Dylan’s early years and his relationship to his Jewish roots?
A: Bob Dylan is one of the most influential personalities of his generation, and certainly one of the most influential Jews. Yet, of all the books that have been written about him, none address the question of how his background and his cultural heritage impacted on his career. Nor do any of his biographers look at his relationship with his cultural background.
Dylan spent years putting forward fanciful backstories about himself. He says he ran away from home many times, worked in the circus, played with famous musicians at an impossibly young age and so on. None of these stories are true.
Yet it took him a long time to publicly admit to his real background. Was this because he was embarrassed? Or was it a marketing strategy, deliberately trying to create an image for himself that he thought would best help him to achieve the fame and stardom he craved?
Then there was the question of his role as a protest singer. He was always held up as the spokesman for his generation, yet he abandoned protest long before his peers took it up. He found fame during one of the most tumultuous periods in modern history. Yet he abandoned protest very early, and never accepted that he was the spokesman for his generation. Why?
Q: How did you research the book, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: I was a teenager in the ‘60s so I was already very familiar with Dylan and his work. I read the other biographies on him, watched the movies, and listened to his music.
I don’t recall being particularly surprised about anything as I was writing the book, though it was fascinating to revisit the history of the times.
Q: I also wanted to ask you about your book Shylock’s Venice--why did you decide to write this book, and how was its title chosen?
A: The story of the Venice ghetto is one of the most fascinating episodes in the Jewish saga. Although the existence of ghettos is a dark stain on European history, a cultural revolution took place in Venice which may never had happened had the Jews not been segregated.
The ghetto was squalid, but it became home to a rich variety of people: philosophers, doctors, rabbis, dancers, musicians, printers, kabbalists, merchants, false messiahs, travellers, and moneylenders, all with their own stories, all talking to each other, all learning and broadening their horizons.
It was inevitable that, with so many Jews living in such close proximity, the ghetto would become a vibrant and fascinating place, where Jewish culture flourished.
Yet the most famous of all Venetian Jews never lived. He was Shylock and ever since The Merchant of Venice was written people have debated what Shakespeare really thought of Jews.
Is his portrayal of Shylock philosemitic or antisemitic? Is Shylock modelled on anyone in particular? How much did Shakespeare know of Venice and its Jews, did he even know there was a ghetto? Did Shakespeare even ever meet a Jew? The history of the ghetto, antisemitism and Shylock are all interconnected.
Q: The writer Shaul Bassi said of the book, “This book shows how Shylock’s real contemporaries, confined within a narrow space, made their voices heard far and wide.” What do you think of that description?
A: As the book shows, it is an accurate description. Venice was the most influential city in Jewish life throughout the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, a centre of scholarship, art, music, philosophy, religion, and literature. Nowhere else in the Jewish world came close.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am writing a biography of a famous Jewish family.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I write a weekly article on Substack about Jewish history. harryfreedman.substack.com
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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