October 15, 2024
Bruce Springsteen was a surprise musical guest at Sunday night's 30th Anniversary fundraising gala for the USC Shoah Foundation, held in New York City. He delivered solo-acoustic versions of two of his songs: "The Ghost of Tom Joad" and "Dancing in the Dark."
The USC Shoah Foundation was launched in 1994 to record audio-visual histories from survivors of the Holocaust, also known as the Shoah. More recently, the USC Shoah Foundation has established the Countering Antisemitism Laboratory to research, record, and address modern-day versions of antisemitism, including Hamas' deadly October 7, 2023 attacks.
At one point during his mini-set, Springsteen joked a bit about occasionally having been incorrectly presumed to be Jewish himself. “I actually was Bruce Springstein for the first year or two of my career," he told his audience. "Everywhere I went — I pull up to the club. ‘Welcome Bruce Springstein.’ This happened as late as a month ago. I’m not joking.” (You can click below for some "living proof:")
Bruce also wasn't joking when he talked about why he has long supported the USC Shoah Foundation's important and ongoing work. “The work of collecting the personal testimony and the voices of those who’ve witnessed history," he said, "has just something in common with the work that songwriters, filmmakers... all artists do to understand and to create our real and imagined worlds. We follow the ghosts of history. We listen for the voices of the past to take us into the future, and we lean into their stories and listen to them.”
Click below for access to more coverage of this important event (including pro-shot photos and video) from our friend Chris Jordan at The Asbury Park Press: