Portland residents take note: Today's guest, Stephen Arnoff, will be in Portland on Thursday November 13th at 8pm at the Eastside Jewish Commons as a guest of Art/Lab. Register for this night of Dylan's music and for reflection on Dylan's Jewish spiritual wisdom at artlabpdx.org

I've been circling two questions for a long time on this show. First: how do traditions actually stay alive—who keeps the line between the core source material and the later commentary tight enough to matter, but loose enough to breathe? Second: what kind of community can nurture both a deep connection to the Jewish past and also support artistic creative freedom and independence?

This was a fun conversation for me not only because I got to indulge my Bob Dylan brain with this Dylan maven but also because over the past few months, I've become a little obsessed with American roots music and country. And, I love and listen to a lot of contemporary music. So as an overthinking rabbi, I've wondered about how our traditions - American or Jewish - do or do not show up in contemporary culture.

Stephen Arnoff had a lot to say on this topic because he lives every day at the intersection of tradition and contemporary expression. He is Chief Executive Officer of the Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center, a leading hub for Jewish learning and culture in Israel. He founded Zamru, Fuchsberg's flagship musical and cultural initiative, and he's spent more than two decades building real infrastructure for artists and seekers—at the 92nd Street Y, the 14th Street Y, Shalem College, and the JCC Association. He earned his doctorate in Midrash and Scriptural Interpretation at JTS as a Wexner Graduate Fellow, and his professional fellowships include the Mandel Jerusalem Fellowship and a Tikvah Fellowship at NYU School of Law. He helped launch LABA, which became a global network of cutting-edge artist residencies; chaired Jerusalem Culture Unlimited from 2017 to 2024, supporting more than 50 emerging cultural organizations; and serves as an Executive Mentor with CANVAS, North America's largest grant-maker for Jewish arts and culture. He's also the author of About Man and God and Law: The Spiritual Wisdom of Bob Dylan, based on his podcast od the same name.

We talk about Dylan as a laboratory for empathy and interpretation, and about the practical, unsexy scaffolding—space, time, money, safety—that lets artists refresh a tradition rather than merely borrow its language. Enjoy!

Show Notes and Links

Registration for Portland Nov 13 Event: artlabpdx.org

Stephen Arnoff: https://www.stephendanielarnoff.com/

Fuchsberg Center: https://fuchsbergcenter.org/

Arnoff's Dylan Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bob-dylan-about-man-and-god-and-law/id1522223234?utm_source=chatgpt.com