We all know Woody Guthrie, right? Dust bowl balladeer. Labor activist. Mentor to Bob Dylan, and by extension, inspiration to perhaps millions of singer-songwriters — from Liverpool’s John Lennon to Brooklyn’s Ramblin’ Jack Elliott.

Well, now it’s time to meet the unknown Woody Guthrie:

Husband of Marjorie Mazia, a Jewish professional dancer from Philadelphia who later opened a popular dance school in Sheepshead Bay.

Son-in-law of Aliza “Bubbe” Greenblatt, a respected Yiddish songwriter and ardent Zionist.

And now, revealed for the first time, composer of dozens of Jewish-themed songs — including a bunch about Chanukah — while he was living in Coney Island.

These long-buried songs were performed for the first time a special concert at the 92nd Street Y called “Holy Ground: The Jewish Songs of Woody Guthrie.”

The show features Guthrie’s Jewish lyrics set to music by The Klezmatics. Special guest is Guthrie’s oldest son, Arlo, who sings a song written by the Jewish grandmother who helped raise him and his siblings.

The event is the brainchild of Nora Guthrie, Woody’s daughter, and director of the Woody Guthrie Archive in Midtown.

Sitting in her office, Nora, a handsome woman with long, curly, salt-and-pepper hair, explains the project is designed to explore and honor the unlikely bond between her grandmother, the Orthodox Jewish songwriter and Yiddish poet, and her father, the Oklahoma Christian troubadour.

Astonishingly, Nora, 53, confides that it was the chance discovery of her grandmother’s literary and musical legacy that led her to uncover her father’s Jewish songs. In fact, she didn’t even know her grandmother wrote songs until a few years ago.

It occurred about five years ago when she attended a concert by the Klezmatics and Itzhak Perlman at Tanglewood in the Berkshires.

After the concert Nora went backstage to meet the artists. Unbeknownst to her, the band had performed some of Aliza Greenblatt’s Yiddish songs.

Nora was introduced to Perlman as “Aliza Greenblatt’s granddaughter.”

“All my life, I’ve been introduced as Woody’s daughter, Arlo’s sister and Marjorie Mazia’s daughter, but this was the first time I’d ever been introduced as ‘Aliza Greenblatt’s granddaughter!’ ” she recalls. “Then Itzhak asked me how I liked his version of Aliza’s song. It was like a psychic slap in the face. I never knew she wrote songs. I always thought she was just my Bubbe!”

That incident led Nora back through the family archives and her discovery of her father’s hidden Jewish songs. She also learned of the profound influence “Bubbe” had on Woody Guthrie’s work and life.

“That’s a big part of this project — her effect on him as a writer, and their friendship,” she says.

It was a profound relationship, especially considering the circumstances, Nora explains.

In the early 1940s, her mother, Marjorie, was a dancer for the Martha Graham Company, married to a Jewish man from Philadelphia. Further, Marjorie’s sister was married to her husband’s brother.

At the time Woody was living in New York hanging out with such legendary folk and blues artists as Peter Seeger, Leadbelly, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee writing political protest songs.

Guthrie’s songs were being recorded by folklorist Alan Lomax, working at the Library of Congress, and Moses Asch of Folkways Records and son of Sholom Asch. These recordings came to the attention of Martha Graham dancer Sophie Maslow, Nora relates. Maslow used some of them in her ballet “Folksay.”

“A few days before the premiere, Maslow and my mother heard that Guthrie was in New York, and went to his Greenwich Village apartment, inviting him to accompany the troupe live,” Nora says.

“According to Guthrie family legend, my mother was already a huge fan of Woody’s ballad ‘Tom Joad.’ She took one look at him and silently declared, ‘That’s the guy I’m going to marry. And I’m going to have his children!’ ”

But Woody was already married, as was she. Nevertheless the two began living together and moved to Coney Island in 1942. The union caused heartbreak and anguish for the families. “They felt absolutely terrible about the betrayal of the whole family and their best friends,” Nora says.

When they married in 1945, Isidore Greenblatt, Marjorie’s father, stopped talking to her.

Arlo Guthrie remembers it well.

“My grandfather was typical in those days. Here’s a guy [Woody] who’s not Jewish, not well dressed, and an entertainer,” he confides during a telephone interview from his Berkshires farm.

But “Bubbe” reacted differently.

“My grandmother understood what he was about. She was much more willing not only to love my dad, but to love the kids that were the result of his love with my mother.”

Woody and Marjorie married in 1945 and lived in the heart of Brooklyn’s Jewish community, mere blocks from Nathan’s Famous, the Cyclone Roller Coaster and the exclusive community of Seagate, where Greenblatt resided.

Greenblatt, who was an ardent Zionist and active Hadassah member, shared with Woody a passion for social justice, anti-fascism and union organizing — all causes dear to the immigrant Jewish community.

She also profoundly affected Arlo, the singer-songwriter and composer of the classic “Alice’s Restaurant.”

“In every family you hope there is one person that gets you,” Arlo says. “It’s usually not a parent. It’s a connection with a person that you can’t put into words. Bubbe got me.”

Arlo says that in trying to make peace in the family, the well-read Woody studied Judaism, from Asch, Bubbe and books.

“In order to try and have a relationship with [my grandfather], my dad didn’t just study [Judaism] like reading a book. He read the shelf.”

It was the tragic death in a house fire of Woody and Marjorie’s first child, Kathie, that led to a reconciliation between Isidore and Marjorie.

Later, when Woody got sick with Huntington’s Disease, Arlo says his grandparents moved back to Seagate from Israel to help raise the grandchildren.

In 1954, Marjorie opened up a dancing school at 1618 Sheepshead Bay Road to help make ends meet, as songwriting royalties from Woody’s famous song “So Long It’s Been Good to Know You” wasn’t enough.

To this day Nora is still amazed about how many children were taught by her mother. “People know of my father,” Nora says. “But more people knew my mother.”

Arlo remembers those years well. “Yeah, we were Jewish kids. I went to a Jewish Y in Brooklyn.”

While some of his friends went to Hebrew school, Arlo recalls a sweet young rabbi coming to the house to teach him Hebrew. The rabbi’s name? Meir Kahane, branded a racist by Israel and killed by an Arab gunman in New York 10 years ago.

“Ironic,” Arlo says.

Arlo recalls his father’s Jewish songs growing up. He said his father wrote songs based on Bible stories even before he met his mother. “I have the books” they are based on, he says proudly. “There are biblical songs that relate back to not only the Christian background that he had but to the stories I grew up hearing as a Jewish kid.” He says Woody didn’t put things into a Jewish context until he met Marjorie.

Woody’s Jewish songs bring a different and welcome perspective to Judaism, Arlo contends. “There’s things you miss about Judaism if you grow up in it. That’s the magic my dad was able to bring. He took a first look.”

Arlo plans to perform a song his Bubbie wrote for his late sister. “It fits perfectly with the lullaby she would sing to us.”

The Klezmatics will perform Woody Guthrie songs with such titles as “Honeyky Hanuka,” “Happy Joyous ! Hanuka,” “Mermaid’s Avenue and “The Many and The Few,” about the struggle of Jews throughout history.

Nora speculates the songs were written in a flurry of holiday inspiration in November 1949 after Woody was asked to perform at a local Jewish center. “My guess is he whipped out 10 songs in a few hours. They weren’t recorded and he probably didn’t do them again.”

Nora says she had a Chanukah tree growing up. “We left out milk and cookies for Santa and the Chanukah fairy.” Her religious approach is to accept all religions, a philosophy she learned from her father.

“Woody loved spirituality,” she says. “He felt all religions sprang from the same well.”

Klezmatics trumpeter Frank London says the band matched Woody’s lyrics with several musical genres. He says that some songs lent themselves to overtly Jewish klezmer music, while others were better suited to classic dust-bowl country tunes or Chasidic nigunim.

The “Holy Ground” project is five years in the making, and takes its name from a 1954 song written by Woody while he in Brooklyn State Hospital.

She expects the concert to yield a CD and a film.

“When people think of Woody they think of the West, but for the core of his life, he always lived around Brooklyn and Queens.”

Acknowledging her father’s profound influence on Minnesota’s Robert Zimmerman and a legion of social activist songwriters, Nora chuckles, “Woody was an underground railroad for Jewish boys.

Story written by Eric J. Greenberg
Submitted by Anne Burns