The Jewish World of Elvis Presley

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In 2018 Elvis’s mother’s headstone was taken out of storage and put on display in Graceland. The headstone was designed by Elvis himself after his mother died in 1958. He included a Star of David in the top left-hand corner. A sign next to the gravestone now says that was to honour Gladys’s Jewish heritage. Not done: This suggestion does not fit into the context of the article. "This belief" refers to Cherokee ancestry, not Jewish ancestry. Please also be aware that, even if it fit into the context, your suggestion would be excessively detailed (why do we need to know how Nancy and Abnder met?) and not entirely supported by reliable sources. Actualcpscm ( talk) 11:57, 18 November 2022 (UTC) Gladys Presley’s grave marker, now on display at Graceland. It was designed by her famous son to honor the family’s Jewish heritage, a Graceland archivist says. (Dan Fellner via JTA) Parker served two years in the 64th Coast Artillery at Fort Shafter, Hawaii, and shortly afterward reenlisted at Fort Barrancas, Florida. [4] Although he had served honorably for a time, he went AWOL in Florida and was charged with desertion. He was punished with solitary confinement, from which he emerged with a psychosis that led him to spend two months in a mental hospital. [4] His condition caused him to be discharged from the army.

At one point, Elvis worked off-and-on for Rabbi Fruchter as a “Shabbos Goy;” he would perform certain types of work that religious law prohibits Jews from doing on the Sabbath, like turning lights on and off. The Presleys were even poorer than my family,” Judy Fruchter Minkove wrote in the Baltimore Sun in 2004. “My father was the Orthodox rabbi for a small congregation and later founded and became principal of the Memphis Hebrew Academy. During the day, my mother would share coffee with Gladys Presley. In our house, Elvis was known as the ‘Shabbos goy,’ the gentile who would turn on lights for us Friday nights or Saturdays, when Orthodox Jews are forbidden to light a fire, which in time evolved into not turning on lights.” On March 26, 1956, after Presley's management contract with Neal expired, Presley signed a contract with Parker that made him his exclusive representative. [26] Later, when Hank Snow asked Parker about the status of their contract with Presley, Parker told him: "You don't have any contract with Elvis Presley. Elvis is signed exclusively to the Colonel." [27] He was very close to the Jewish people, especially in Memphis,” says Copen. “He always treated them very nicely and they treated him very nicely.”

He was always searching for answers as to why he was chosen to be who he was,” Marchese said. “I think he found some of those answers through different religions.” It had been with the help of two of his Jewish friends that Elvis was able to follow through with his plan to design a gravestone with a Star of David, despite Vernon’s apparent displeasure and that of his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, as well. George Klein, another of Elvis’s Jewish friends, said that not only did Elvis know about his Jewish heritage, he was also very proud of it. According to Max Wallace and Jonathan Goldstein, authors of "Schmelvis: In Search of Elvis Presley's Jewish Roots," Nancy Burdine “probably” came from a family that immigrated from Lithuania around the time of the American Revolution. Werner, Michael (August 12, 2018). "A New Light On Colonel Tom Parker". elvis.com.ua. Elvis.com.ua . Retrieved August 19, 2023. My parents never had even an inkling that Elvis may have been Jewish,” says Harold. “If they would, they would never have considered asking him to be a ‘Shabbos Goy.’”

The result is "Schmelvis: Searching for the King's Jewish Roots," and the film does exactly that. For example, we learn that Elvis grew up in "the Pinch" -- the Jewish quarter of Memphis where his mother worked in the "shmata business," a predominantly Jewish enterprise at the time. As a teenager the future king was the "Shabbos goy" (i.e. performed tasks otherwise prohibited to Jews on the Sabbath) for his upstairs neighbors at 462 Alabama Ave., Rabbi Alfred and Jeannette Fruchter, who was the Rabbi at the local synagogue. The Presleys regularly came over for Friday night dinner, and Elvis had a penchant for the Rebbetzin's cooking. Turns out, Elvis’ maternal great-great grandmother, Nancy Burdine, was believed to be Jewish. Her daughter gave birth to Doll Mansell, who gave birth to Elvis’ mother, Gladys Smith. That, according to a Jewish law, which confers Jewish lineage by way of the mother, makes Elvis technically a Jew. If that grim scenario sounds familiar, the Colonel was also a huge fan of Nightmare Alley, the 1947 drama recently remade by Guillermo del Toro. “The fascination Colonel had with that picture was unbelievable,” Raphael remembered. “He sat there so engrossed that he never moved, though God knows how many times he’d seen it. He talked about it all the time, for years.” The Colonel Loved Elvis’s Racy Headlines—In Fact He Helped Stage Them According to Larry Geller, Elvis' hair stylist and at times spiritual guru, Elvis was quite spiritual in his own way. When he worked for Elvis, Geller was involved with Eastern religions and would often give Elvis books of a spiritual nature. Geller subsequently became an Orthodox Jew. According to Hartal, Gelller, whom he calls Chaim Lev, said that if there is one regret that he has about his time with Elvis it is that he wasn't able to wrap teffilin with him.

ICYMI

But amidst all the artifacts inside the Elvis Presley Museum, there’s something else that one wouldn’t expect to find – a gold menorah with nine Hanukkah candles. Parker was born as Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk in Breda, North Brabant, Netherlands, [4] the seventh of eleven children, [6] to Maria Elisabeth (Marie) Ponsie and Adam van Kuijk. [7] His father was employed in the military for twelve years and by the time Parker had been born, he worked as a liveryman. [8] Parker had French heritage through his great-great-grandfather Petri Ponci who arrived from Val-d'Oise to the Netherlands in the late eighteenth century. [9] As a boy, he worked as a barker at carnivals in his hometown, learning many of the skills he would later use working in the entertainment industry. [1] [4] When he became rich, Elvis reportedly donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Memphis Jewish Welfare Fund and played racquetball late at night at the Memphis Jewish Community Centre. Presley worked for the rabbi's family, doing tasks Jews were not permitted to do on the Jewish Sabbath. He did this for free. The rabbi, in turn, did things like lend Presley his record player and arrange for a summer camp trip for Presley. When Presley hit it big, he made a major donation to the rabbi's religious school. In May 1929, Parker returned to the U.S. and found work with carnivals owing to his experience in the Netherlands. [4] He enlisted in the United States Army a few months later, taking the name Tom Parker from the name of the officer who interviewed him to disguise the fact that he was an illegal alien. He completed basic training at Fort McPherson in Georgia. [4]