004 Elvis Is Alive ? In Olam Ha-ba
Elvis Is Alive ? In Olam Ha-ba
By Gil Zohar – Jerusalem
Back in the early-1980s, when I made aliyah for the first time, I remember a Purim spoof published by The Jerusalem Post with the headline “Elvis found studying at a yeshiva in Israel”. But truth is stranger than fiction, as every journalist will attest. While Elvis Presley (1935-1977) never stepped in a rabbinical academy, the evidence keeps mounting of the King’s own Jewish connection and ancestry, not to mention that in his youth he was a Shabbes goy. Presley’s Jewish roots can be traced to his maternal great-great-grandmother Nancy Burdine Tackett. Since religious identity is matrilineal according to <i>halacha</i> (Judaic law), Elvis was technically Jewish. That Elvis also had Cherokee ancestors is another matter.
More important were the Jews who influenced Elvis in his youth. The duplex on Alabama Street in Memphis, Tennessee’s Jewish neighborhood in which Presley grew up was owned by Fagie Shaffer whose husband had been a <i>shochet</i> (kosher butcher). Elvis, his beloved mother Gladys Love and his unemployed and sickly father Vernon occupied the ground floor. The upstairs flat was rented to Rabbi Alfred Fruchter, the Orthodox leader of Temple Beth El Emeth. The young rabbi and his wife Jeanette were good to have as neighbors because they owned two items the Presleys lacked – a telephone and a phonograph.
On Sundays, when Elvis would be washing his 1942 Lincoln Zephyr coupe, bought for $50 as a present for his 18th birthday, the rabbi would be playing cantorial records, such as Moishe Koussevitsky and Moishe Oysher. While taking care of his car, Elvis would be listening to the voice of the synagogue coming from the upstairs window.
It was a hot summer day in 1954 when Elvis knocked on the Fruchter door and asked to borrow the record player. He had made a recording of something called “I Love You, Mama.”
Years later, Rabbi Fruchter recalled listening to the record being played over and over in the apartment below. It was an odd sort of song with a strangely rhythmic musical arrangement.
In his 1994 biography of a poor Southern boy’s meteoric rise to unprecedented fame, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley (Little, Brown), author Peter Guralnick reveals that both the landlord and Rabbi Fruchter and his wife were quite friendly with the Presleys.
They “showed a considerable amount of kindness, and financial consideration” toward the impoverished Presley family. “Mrs. Presley visited with Mrs. Fruchter almost every afternoon after work, and the Fruchters were particularly fond of the boy, who would turn on the electricity or light the gas for them on the Sabbath.”
Guralnick’s biography closes somberly with the performer’s induction into the U.S. Army and the death of his mother in 1958. The second volume, Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley, (Back Bay Books, 2000) continues the saga to its tragic denouement culminating in a bathroom death scene.
Some Elvis fans consider Goralnick’s two-volume biography the definitive story of Elvis. But when it comes to the King’s Jewish connection, Goralnick doesn’t have the final word.
Max Wallace and Jonathan Goldstein, the authors of Schmelvis: In Search Of Elvis Presley’s Jewish Roots (ECW Press, 2002), devote 208 pages to their search, from Graceland to Israel, to find the true roots of the King.
With the help of a Hassidic Jewish Elvis impersonator, Dan Hartel, who performs at senior citizens homes under the stage name “Schmelvis,” and Reuben Poupko – an Orthodox rabbi from Ottawa, the two Canadian authors further explore the territory Goralnick trailblazed. As well, Wallace and Goldstein parlayed their research into a documentary film ? also called Schmelvis. Wallace and Goldstein interviewed Rabbi Alfred Fruchter’s widow, Jeanette, who recalls; “He [Elvis] was about 15 years old then and we got along so beautifully. He was such a nice boy, such manners. He called my husband Sir Rabbi.” Elvis would visit the shomer Shabbat family every Saturday morning to turn on lights and do other jobs they were prohibited from doing. “We never told him we called him a Shabbos Goy. Usually, you give a small tip to the gentile who does this for you, but Elvis would never accept any money. He said it was his pleasure.” Mrs. Fruchter also remembers how she and her husband invited the Presley family for Friday night dinner once a month, with the young Elvis being a particularly big fan of matzah ball soup and challah.
Elvis always carried a yarmulke in his pocket, she adds. And although the couple lost touch with Elvis after he found fame, the Jewish influences on his early life were all too evident – he donated money to Jewish causes throughout his career, and on one occasion gave a check for $150,000 to the Memphis Hebrew Academy. And what of the claim that Elvis was musically influenced by the chazzanut 78 RPM records the Fruchters used to play? “My husband loved Jewish cantorial music, and Elvis told us that he loved listening to it. Some people think it may have influenced his own style, that they’ve heard a Jewish twist to some of his tunes. I don’t know. But I remember when he cut his first record for his mother’s birthday. When he got home with it, they couldn’t play it because they were too poor to afford a record player. So my husband lent him ours. He was so thankful. They would play that first song over and over again.
That’s what started his career, you know, that recording.” The film accompanying the book offers further insight into Elvis’ Jewishness, as makers Wallace and Goldstein trace the King’s legacy to Israel and then return to his former home, Graceland, for further insight. Poignantly they reveal Elvis’ recipe for his favorite sandwich – kosher peanut butter and banana on challah, naturally. Apart from Wallace and Goldstein’s kitsch and tell book, reference should also be made to Elaine Dundy’s Elvis And Gladys (1985) ? which was republished in 2004 by the University Press of Mississippi. Dundy documents Elvis’ genealogy: “…Nancy Burdine was married to Abner Tackett (Elvis’ great great maternal grandmother). Nancy was of particular interest to Gladys for her Jewish heritage, often remembering Nancy’s sons for their Jewish names Sidney and Jerome. Nancy and Abner had a daughter Martha who married White Mansell. The daughter which they named Octavia, nick-named Doll, who was Elvis’ maternal grandmother.”
“…Doll and Robert had nine children. Gladys Love was the fifth daughter born followed by three more brothers and one sister. After his mother died, Elvis personally sought to design his beloved mother’s gravesite which included a Star of David on Gladys Love Presley’s tombstone. The decision was made by him in honor of his Jewish heritage. Something his mother was proud of and acknowledged to Elvis at a very early age.” Later in life, when Elvis discovered the teachings of Judaism and Zen Buddhism through his hairdresser Larry Geller, he became familiar with the Hebrew alphabet. For much of 1977 Elvis wore a Chai necklace while performing. When Charlie Hodge asked him why this particular piece of jewelry was so important, Elvis replied, “I don’t want to miss out on goin’ to heaven on a technicality.” Guralnick, and to a lesser extent Wallace and Goldstein, give us the portrait of a great man, a man whose legacy today is encrusted with rhinestones and lacquer, a man who should be rediscovered and remembered as he was ? a highly assimilated but still proud blue suede Jew.
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Gil Kezwer is a writer, photographer and sculptor based in Toronto, Canada, and Jerusalem, Israel. ca.geocities.com/gkezwer@rogers.com/