Woody Guthrie’s Yiddishe Mama

Woody Guthrie, born 103 years ago today, is best known as the dust bowl balladeer who wrote many of America's most beloved songs, including "This Land Is Your Land." He was a free spirit and a sprite, a vagabond minstrel who spent his 55 years on earth using music to empower the common man. He wrote of the roads he traveled and the characters he met, of "dusty old dust" and the places he lived on "the wild, windy plains." He also wrote about a land and a culture far removed from his Tom Joad roots, a place "where the halvah meets the pickle, where the sour meets the sweet." Yes, folks, it turns out that Woody Guthrie had a Jewish mother-in-law! And folk culture is all richer for it.

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The Gift of Anne Frank: Writing Till the Stoney End

Anne Frank, the Jewish teen diarist who documented her experiences hiding from the Nazis during World War II, would have turned 86 today. Her work inspired me to purchase my first diary. We were soul mates; both of us dark-haired and dark-eyed, yearning to be free, wrapped up in our writing as a form of escape and self-therapy. Like Anne, I will continue to write till my stoney end.

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Chimes of Freedom Flashing: Bob Dylan Honored at White House

Singer/songwriter Bob Dylan just received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. Bobby wore shades and never cracked a facial muscle as the Prez heaped all kinds of well-deserved praise upon him. That's our poker-faced Bob, the brilliant, eccentric minstrel that I'll adore forever.

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