“As Bobby Zimmerman, he’s just one of the boys,” says Louie Kemp, Bob Dylan’s buddy since the early 1950s. The two Jewish Minnesotans met at Herzl Camp in Burnett, Wisconsin in 1953; they did not know that were also born in the same hospital – St Mary’s in Duluth.
When they met as campers, 12-year-old Bobby’s destiny as a rock-and-roll star was already etched in stone. “He would go around telling everybody that he was going to be a rock-and-roll star. I was 11, and I believed him,” recalls Louie.
The two boys attended the camp each year between 1953 and 1957, and both were instilled with a heavy dose of Jewish values and understanding of its tenets.
Bobby Zimmerman, who would change his name to Bob Dylan less than a decade later, formed his first musical group, The Jokers, while at camp. Louies remembers Bobby there as a bright and wide-eyed prankster who was well-liked by other campers and his counsellors. Their shared experiences, particularly at Herzl Camp, helped lay the foundation for their continued escapades, as told in Louie Kemp’s 2019 book, Dylan & Me: 50 Years of Adventures. The crux shows that Bob Dylan’s best work lay in a deeply-felt, lived and solid understanding of Jewish principles, all of which continue to find their way within his wondrous songs.
Much of the world’s attention towards Bob Dylan these days is focused on the success of James Mangold’s multi-Oscar-nominated film A Complete Unknown, which garnered eight Academy Award nominations. Even though the film did not win anything on 2 March, its success achieved a new level of appreciation of Dylan’s remarkable oeuvre. It also brought younger fans into his ever-expanding musical tent.
“I know the classiest thing would be to downplay the effort that went into this role and how much this means to me, but the truth is this was five years of my life,” said Timothée Chalamet, who won Best Actor for his portrayal of the music legend at the Screen Actors Guild in late February. “I poured everything I had into playing this incomparable artist, Mr Bob Dylan, a true American hero. It was the honour of a lifetime playing him.”
“People would say to me, ‘Bob’s been really lucky’. No, he wasn’t lucky. He was blessed,” reflects Louie. “Luck’s a random occurrence. When something good happens to you, and you have that understanding and that connection, it’s a direct blessing from God. Bob knows that.”
By late summer 1972, Bob was living in downtown New York with his wife, Sara Lownds, and their five children. As he and Louie had not been in touch for some years, they each learned about how the other was doing through Bob’s doting mother. Beatty Zimmerman, a presence in the Jewish community as a leading member of Hadassah, often bumped into Louis on Superior Street in Duluth. “Beatty was very warm and outgoing. Everybody liked her,” he says.
Once Louie found himself in New York on business and the two old friends met at a café near Dylan’s apartment on MacDougal Street. “It was just like old times”, says Louie.
“Once he wrote Blowin’ in the Wind, the floodgates went wild because he started spitting out these songs of such consequence and meaning that people were rushing to his door, and [asking things] like, ‘Who is this guy?” recalls Louie. “I remember asking Bobby, ‘How were you able to write these songs? They’re pretty amazing.’
“He’d say, ‘It’s not me, it’s God. He puts the words in my head. I’m just the scribe, and I write them down. He gets all the credit.’ He’s always been very humble about this gift that was given to him from God. He knows that it’s a gift. At some point, he came to the understanding that some blessings come from God and that there are responsibilities that come with it. He took that gift, and he has very humbly run with it. He’s shared it with the world.”
Louie Kemp has also led an interesting and righteous life. Around the time Bob left for New York in 1961, Louie also left his studies at the University of Minnesota, to take over his father’s Lake Superior fish business. Since then, his fishing empire has expanded into Alaska and is one of the most successful seafood operations in the US. In 1985, Kemp Fisheries began producing surimi-based seafood products; the following year, the company introduced the Crab Delights brand and changed its name to The Louis Kemp Seafood Company.
Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown
Louis Kemp became head of Aish HaTorah Discovery Program, a seminar in Jewish history that has reached hundreds of thousands of participants. He is also the founder of Chabad of Pacific Palisades, California.
In August 2024, Louie made aliyah. “My people are under attack; the country that I love is under attack. I wanted to show solidarity. I feel the best way to do so was by moving to Israel,” he said in an interview with ynetnews. “I’ve always had a strong Jewish identity, and even before I became religious, I proudly wore my Star of David necklace and felt connected to Israel.”
Despite not being well-versed in the art of producing concerts, Bob Dylan still chose his pal to oversee all business operations of his famed Rolling Thunder Revue shows in late 1975 through the spring of 1976. “If you can sell fish, you can sell tickets,” Bob wryly told Louie who, in turn, accepted his friend’s offer. Rolling Thunder Revue has often been cited by rock fans – and inscrutably hard to please Bob Dylan devotees – as among the finest of all his tours.
Louie Kemp today
Much of Dylan & Me: 50 Years of Adventures is devoted to Louie’s successful ability to bring his buddy Bobby back home to his Jewish roots. In fact, when Bobby asked Louis to live with him for three years in Brentwood, California, between 1980 and 1983, not only did he oblige, but he introduced Bobby to prominent Jewish figures he knew from back home in Minnesota. Chabad educator Rabbi Manis Friedman was among them. Rabbi Friedman soon taught Bob Dylan “the Jewish version of the meaning of life,” says Louis.
It was like Herzl Camp all over again.
“It had become my mission to help Bobby find the spiritual fulfilment his soul was yearning for in Judaism – the religion of his ancestors,” writes Kemp. “I would introduce many more rabbis and observant Jews to Bobby, each bringing with him a brick to strengthen the foundation of his faith.”
Two of Bob’s sons, Jakob and Jesse, had their bar mitzvahs at the Kotel in the early 80s, and his kids also attended Herzl Camp. “I think most people know I was raised Jewish,” says Jakob Dylan, Bob’s son and storied singer-songwriter in his own right. Jakob is the lead singer of The Wallflowers.
Today Bob Dylan remains a staunch supporter of Chabad, in large part due to the insistence and efforts by his devoted friend.
“We saw each other from the inside out, not outside like everyone else did,” concludes Louie, who says that he plans to write a book about making aliyah and his newfound life in Israel. “Our history is very real.”
