Dylan to Israel: Great to be here (you just didn’t hear it)

June 23, 2011 - 8:54 AM by

Bob Dylan performing in Ramat Gan on Monday night (Photo: Sarah Demmi Levin Photography)

It’s unclear what bothered people the most about Bob Dylan’s concert in Ramat Gan stadium on Monday night – his croaky voice and insistence on rearranging his classic hits or the fact that he didn’t address the audience with a “Shalom” or even a “thank you.”

Israelis have a deep desire – after so many decades of world isolation and denials of its legitimacy – of being liked. Most performers that come here gain immeasurable brownie points by spouting populist utterings like ‘Toda Raba” or “sababa,” or doing impromptu versions of “Hava Nagila,” evidently the one song that Westerners still identify as Israel even though it went out of style with the Hora.

Stars like Elton John and Leonard Cohen went one further – lashing out against the boycott efforts against Israel in Elton’s case or blessing the crowd with the “Birkat Kohanim” in Cohen’s.

Oh, how we hoped and waited for Dylan to show us his Zionist heart, something that would show to us that his performing in Israel was not your ordinary concert, but a statement that he was a proud Jew performing in the Jewish homeland.

“Nu, can’t he say ‘shalom?” one twenty-something attendee asked his friend with agitation about halfway through the show. By near the end of the show, that request had diminished to a simple ‘thank you’ but the cantankerous bard born Robert Zimmerman was not about to suddenly go ‘showbiz’ and say ‘great to be here’ or even display basic human decency and say ‘thank you.’

One commenter on a Dylan fan site wrote that those people upset that Dylan didn’t speak to the crowd didn’t understand that he WAS speaking to them the entire night – through his songs.

Nobody knows what’s going on in Dylan’s head, but whatever it was, it wasn’t enough to quell the insecurities of us Israelis – who want their declarations of friendship stated loud and clear, not cryptically through songs. We revel in the arrival of big overseas stars not only because we, like everyone else, want to see them perform, but because their arrival represents another step in our quest for legitimacy.

And until we get that ‘thank you’ or ‘Toda,’ it’s not quite legitimate.

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Tags: • Category: A New Reality, Entertainment, General, Israeliness, Life, Music, Pop Culture 

Comments

4 Comments on Dylan to Israel: Great to be here (you just didn’t hear it)

  1. Rebecca on Thu, Jun 23rd 2011 7:31 PM

    2. I saw Dylan in Jerusalem in the late 1980s – 1987, I think, at the Sultan’s Pool. He didn’t talk to us then, either – he just started playing. His voice was better then. But what was worse – the electricity suddenly cut out, everything went dark, the microphone stopped working, and nothing happened for several minutes. When the electricity was restored, Dylan was no longer on the stage – he had left, after only an hour. We felt cheated, and I vowed never to waste more money on Dylan concerts.

  2. David on Thu, Jun 23rd 2011 11:04 PM

    3. Some Israelis may have such a silly desoire – “to be liked”?!

    Anyway, I have no idea why anyone would want to see this drug addicted, drunked, who in my view is amongst the worst music I have ever heard.

    Maybe an American can explain.

    Or perhaps the audience consisted of aging American oilim [g]

  3. Lenora on Fri, Jun 24th 2011 6:19 AM

    4. Ooooof! Web Sheriff has taken down the video. :–(

  4. neil kummer on Sat, Jun 25th 2011 11:41 PM

    5. you got it right, David. He was happy to be here.
    As you can see in the picture you posted, and i could
    see in the binoculars, he was mostly having a very good time.

    as a Post article noted, he is a work in progress. we were
    privileged to share some time with him.

    Mr. D., keeps on watching that river flow. Will he be moving to Israel
    anytime soon? You never know, but he has been here more times than
    80% of American Jewry.

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