“I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now,” Bob Dylan sang in 1964’s “My Back Pages.”
Reverse-aging or no, the legendary Jewish folk singer turns 75 on Tuesday.
While Dylan’s Jewishness has been examined and reexamined over the years, relatively little attention has been paid to his 1983 song “Neighborhood Bully” — a rare declaration of full-throated Israel support by a mainstream American rocker.
The lyrics (posted in full here) equate Israel with an “exiled man,” who is unjustly labeled a bully for fending off constant attacks by his neighbors.
Dylan released the song on his twenty-second studio album, “Infidels,” in the wake of his brief born-again Christian phase during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
