Dylan's Hebrew name

[James Zadok]

If anyone is interested in Dylan's Hebrew name, Shabtai Zisel, here are a couple of thoughts on its origin. First of all, Shabtai is a name often given to Jewish boys born on the Sabbath. Dylan was born on May 24, 1941, which was indeed a Saturday--the day of the Jewish Sabbath. So, that's one possible origin. However, there may have been an even more important element in Dylan's naming

Dylan's name may instead (or also) have been conferred in honor of a great-grandfather on his mother's side, Robert Solemovitz (1853-1938), who was apparently known within his Jewish community in Superior, Wisconsin as "Sabsie." His death in 1938 came just three years before Dylan's birth, and therefore might have been relatively fresh in the memory of his granddaughter, Beatty Zimmerman when she gave birth to Robert Allen Zimmerman in 1941. In this case, it may even have been the case that both Dylan's English name (Robert) and his Hebrew name (Shabtai) were meant to memorialize his great-grandfather.

Dylan's paternal grandfather was named Zigman Zimmerman and had the Hebrew name Zisel. Born in 1876, he died in 1936--five years before Dylan's birth. Zigman's son, Abe Zimmerman, might certainly have wanted to honor the memory of his father who had died just a few years earlier. When a Jewish child is given two Hebrew names, it's probably fairly common for one of them to come from the father's side and the other from the mother's side--which fits the circumstances of what happened at Dylan's birth.

But just where did Dylan's middle name, Allen, come from?

[Rachel]

Wow, how or where did you learn all that? :) ?

[Stephan Pickering]

On Wednesday, February 17, 2016 at 8:25:22 PM UTC-8, James Zadok wrote:

Shalom & Erev tov...independently of each other, we present the same facts, and I devote my first chapter (on his 12 June 1954 bar mitzvah) to exploring this, in my in-progress monograph Shabtai Zisel benAvraham v'Rachel Riva: davening in the musematic dark. There is one other possibility shared with me by a CHaBaD-Lubavitcher friend of Shabtai: that his father had more than a passing interest in Shabbatai Tzvi.
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STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח"ם בן אברהם
Torah אלילה Yehu'di Apikores / Philologia Kabbalistica Speculativa Researcher
לחיות זמן רב ולשגשג

THE KABBALAH FRACTALS PROJECT

[James Zadok]

Best source is probably Dave Engel's "Dylan in Minnesota," but there's also related stuff all over the Internet. For example:

http://hibbing.yolasite.com/family-and-friends.php

[Stephan Pickering]

On Wednesday, February 17, 2016 at 9:05:42 PM UTC-8, James Zadok wrote:

> Best source is probably Dave Engel's "Dylan in Minnesota," but there's also related stuff all over the Internet. For example:
>
> http://hibbing.yolasite.com/family-and-friends.php

Shalom & Erev tov...when I began preliminary research on the pre-1959 Hibbing years over 40 years ago, I later found Dave Engel's 219 page conglomeration a tissue of errors, as he relied not upon actual research, but upon the unreliable 'press'. I do not use it in my monograph-in-progress, NOR do I cite it; like Heylin/Sounes, it is gossipography. Shabtai 1953-1954 had two Hebrew teachers, one in Duluth (an Auschwitz survivor who, later, would become a rabbi who marched, along with Reb Heschel with MLK), then with Reb Reuven Maier, the Romanian kabbalist. The Duluth teacher, like Reb Maier, was well aware of the vituperative abusive parents, and when Abe Zimmerman realised he knew of it, the Duluth trips ended. I devote most of my first chapter to Reb Maier's teaching Shabtai. None of this is found in the Engel poorly organised collection. The yolasite.com material on Hibbing is fairly factual, but misses a plethora of material. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Rachel]

That's cool. Thanks! :)