Bruce Springsteen’s special link to Jewish fans

Maureen Ash, 61, arrived in Tampa from her Chicago home in time for last Wednesday night’s Bruce Springsteen show. The longtime fan — a Spring-Nut — who saw her first show in 1980, did not have to worry about accommodations for Shabbat this time, given the middle-of-the-week show.

She was planning to catch the Boss again in concert on Tuesday, at the Hard Rock Cafe in Hollywood, Fla., after staying for Shabbat in Boynton Beach, a three-and-a-half hour drive away.

Ash was one of many Jewish Spring-Nuts who descended on Tampa for the E Street Band’s tour, which opened Feb. 1.

For previous Springsteen tours, Ash hosted Shabbat dinners for Jewish and non-Jewish fans, whom she introduced to her home-baked challah. Her one house rule must have surprised many of these guests.

“I tell them to please leave the bathroom light on,” Ash told JNS.

At one Shabbat meal, she asked an observant Jewish male friend to recite the kiddush and hamotzei.

At one show, she struck up a conversation with a woman wearing a skirt. The two realized they were both skipping the Friday show because they are Sabbath-observant. (Ash also will not attend Springsteen shows during the Omer period between Passover and Shavuot.)

Some Orthodox Spring-Nuts bolt out of the house the moment Shabbat or a holiday ends, bound for a show. And some, if they are Howie Chazanoff — who runs the Spring-Nuts Facebook group, where he is known as Howie Chaz, with his wife, Julie — can almost pull off the music fan equivalent of Joshua holding up the sun and moon during the bombardment of Jericho.

In September 2017, Chazanoff, 54, contacted E Street Band guitarist and “Sopranos” actor Stevie Van Zandt on Twitter, asking when exactly the show would start.

“I ask, because I have tickets for the 23rd and have to wait for [the] Jewish Holiday to end,” he wrote. The exchange has since been deleted, but according to a screenshot that Chazanoff provided, Van Zandt wrote back, “Oy vey! When does it end? Thanks for the heads up. We’ll wait for you.”

Evidently, the band did wait for Chazanoff to arrive after Rosh Hashanah ended, because the latter tweeted on Sept. 24, 2017, “I can’t thank you enough for waiting! Thanks for acknowledging me and my sign and being a mench! Happy New Year brother!” The sign Chazanoff held in the picture thanks the band for waiting for the “Tribe.”

“My impetus in starting Spring-Nuts was to create a distraction not only for Springsteen fans but for myself as well from all the trials and tribulations in this crazy world,” Chazanoff said.

What began as a 500-member Facebook group grew to become acknowledged by Springsteen and the band eight years later, in large part for its charity work. The group has supported WhyHunger, Fulfill, Kristen Ann Carr Fund, Pink Fund, Light of Day, NJ Pandemic Relief Fund and Boys and Girls Clubs of Monmouth County.

“We have helped out numerous individuals, who either lost jobs, or needed help paying for hospital costs and even, unfortunately, funeral expenses,” Chazanoff said. “What was originally created as a distraction has now become a haven for Springsteen fans around the world.” (In his professional life, Chazanoff also helps people. He is director of home- and community-based services at Yedei Chesed, which supports persons with developmental disabilities and their families.)

Springsteen too is philanthropically minded.

At the Tampa show, as at each stop of the tour, he asks fans on their way out, to donate food or money to a local food bank. Last May, Springsteen surprised the Spring-Nuts with a recorded message at the Stone Pony club in Asbury Park, NJ, site of the annual Spring-Nut Seaside Serenade. That year, it raised $50,000 for WhyHunger. The rest of the band has sent video messages of support too.

Rabbi David Kalb, of the Jewish Learning Center of New York, takes religious fanhood to another level and references Springsteen’s lyrics in his sermons and writing. He appreciates particularly what he calls themes of redemption, introspection and transformation in Springsteen’s music.

“These themes thoroughly resonate with me, as they are reminiscent of the Prophets of the Bible, who also critiqued their world for its moral ills,” Kalb said.

In a 2017 Huffington Post article. “Getting Ready for the High Holidays with Bruce Springsteen,” Rabbi Kalb wrote that “these concerts have given me a tremendous start to my High Holiday prep. I am now much more focused on how I can better myself and the world, and I believe that anyone who chooses to reflect on these issues could find similar messages in Bruce’s music.”

Amy Kalman, who made Aliyah from Toronto in 1981, has flown from Ben-Gurion Airport to Paris, Montpellier, Zurich and other European cities to hear the Boss.

“The first time you see him live, it grabs your kishkes!” she said, using the Yiddish for “guts.”

Kalman reports a “strong” group of Israeli fans, many of whom have gone to shows in Europe and will go to this tour as well. She and her husband were “on such a high” from a 2016 Paris show that, upon returning home, they planned a 36-hour trip to Zurich, so they and their children could hear Springsteen.

“After six long years, and being in their 70s, Bruce and the band showed that age means nothing when you’re the legendary E Street Band,” Chazanoff said. “They absolutely rocked Tampa as if they were in their 20s, and as if they never had a hiatus.”