David Bowie at a news conference at the Cannes Film Festival in France, May 13, 1983. (Ralph Gatti\/AFP\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
From his Ziggy Stardust alter ego to his latest album \u2014 a jazzy, avant-garde rock release called \u201cBlackstar\u201d released just two days before his death \u2014 Bowie racked up some interesting Jewish connections. Below, we give you five of them.<\/p>\n
1. He was into kabbalah, and sang about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere are we, one magical movement from kether to malkuth,\u201d Bowie sang in his 1976 song \u201cStation to Station.\u201d \u201cKether\u201d and \u201cmalkuth\u201d are two of the 10 elements of the kabbalistic tree of life \u2014 the highest and lowest parts, respectively. Despite being high on cocaine for most of the “Station to Station” album’s recording process and describing it years later as the work of \u201can entirely different person,\u201d Bowie was fascinated with kabbalah during this period (decades before Madonna made it cool). The back cover of the \u201cStation to Station\u201d album features Bowie drawing the kabbalistic tree of life in chalk.<\/p>\n
2. His first manager was Jewish.<\/p>\n
Les Conn, born to a Jewish family in Stamford Hill, a traditionally Jewish part of London, failed to make much headway in the music business before connecting with the 17-year-old Bowie \u2014 then still going by his birth name, David Robert Jones \u2014 in 1964 through a mutual acquaintance, washing machine magnate John Bloom. Conn managed to get Jones\u2019 first band some gigs, but he couldn\u2019t sell his talent to The Beatles’ publisher, Dick James. When Conn\u2019s contract with Jones expired, the rocker left for a new band and changed his name to Bowie \u2014 and the rest is history.<\/p>\n
3. He was close to Jewish rockers Lou Reed and Marc Bolan (in different ways).<\/p>\n
Bowie connected with Lou Reed, of the Velvet Underground, and pop artist Andy Warhol on a trip to the United States in 1971. He later produced Reed\u2019s breakthrough solo album \u201cTransformer\u201d in 1972. When Reed died in 2013, Bowie called him \u201ca master.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marc Bolan, lead singer of the glam rock band T-Rex, had a more complicated and competitive relationship with Bowie. The two teenagers became close friends early on in their careers when they were both managed by Conn.<\/p>\n
Tension ensued when Bolan (who was born Mark Feld and ate Jewish soul food after concerts) found success years before Bowie did. But Bolan\u2019s producer, Tony Visconti, eventually began devoting more of his time and energy to Bowie\u2019s albums, which began climbing the charts as Bolan went downhill into alcohol and drug addiction. Nevertheless, according to the Daily Mail, after Bolan died in a 1977 car crash at 29, Bowie quietly gave financial support to Bolan\u2019s wife and son.<\/p>\n
4. He went through a bit of a Nazi phase.<\/p>\n
In a drug-induced state leading up to the release of \u201cStation to Station,\u201d Bowie was criticized for saying in an interview that Adolf Hitler was \u201cone of the first rock stars.\u201d In the same month, he said Britain could \u201cbenefit from a fascist leader.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bowie later assumed a persona called the \u201cThin White Duke,\u201d which has been described as an \u201cemotionless Aryan superman.\u201d In 1976, he drove up to London\u2019s Victoria Station in a Mercedes convertible and gave what was reported to be a Nazi salute. Bowie denied the reports and later attributed his behavior to the copious amounts of drugs he was taking at the time.<\/p>\n
5. He performed in Israel during one of the happiest stages of his life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I would have to be squeezed real hard to be happier,\u201d Bowie said in 1996, fresh off a performance at Hayarkon Park in Tel Aviv. In a series of videos, Bowie said he and his band were in the midst of one of the best tours of his life. He had recently released the experimental album \u201cOutside\u201d and had several other creative projects in the works. \u201cI\u2019ve been trying to go here for years,\u201d he said in one of the videos with a smile shortly after getting off his plane.<\/p>\n
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