Elvis a Jew? Where is the documented proof?

When I got onto the computer to work this morning and was browsing the "Social Media". I got sidetracked when I noticed posts stating that; 

"Elvis Presley was "Jewish".

These posts that I saw, and the responses, where multiplying like snow in an avalanche.

Few of the readers note that ALL the evidence given by the authors of the claim are all based on hearsay and innuendos.

And laughable of ALL is  the "proof" that; "He occasionally sported necklaces bearing the Star of David and the Hebrew word “chai” (meaning “life”).

I saw where these posts were based on books and articles by author's like; 

Rabbi Barbara Aiello, who penned books based on the hearsay statements of people and NOT on true documented facts. 

According to Roselle Kline Chartock in her book “The Jewish World of Elvis Presley”, "Elvis’s Jewish connections were more than just a series of coincidences"

"Nancy Burdine, a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania, settled in Memphis in the 19th century and raised a family, including sons named Sidney and Jerome and a daughter named Martha.

Martha had a daughter, Octavia, who gave birth to Gladys, who married Vernon Presley and who, in 1935, gave birth to twin boys, Jesse Garon and Elvis Aron (who as an adult would change the spelling of his middle name to the more conventional and Jewish-looking Aaron). Jesse was delivered stillborn, which would feed the strong emotional codependency between the overprotective Gladys and her surviving son, Elvis."

Okay if Nancy Burdine, were a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania, then why are we not presented with her naturalization records? I have found the naturalization papers of my great grandfather's  maternal side from a Jew born in Riga, Lithuania ancestor from 1861.

For example Dan Fellner in his article published by Aish HaTorah states:

"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." 

Okay so WHAT is wrong with this? 

What is wrong is the statement: "was believed to be Jewish"  which means in simple English UNPROVEN as in NO documented  proof.

Yet, in Pamela Clarke Keogh's book from (2008). Elvis Presley: "The Man. The Life. The Legend." Simon and Schuster. she cites;

"His mother, Gladys, and the rest of the family, apparently believed that her great-great-grandmother, Morning Dove White, was Cherokee; and this was confirmed by Elvis's granddaughter Riley Keough in 2017.

In her book "Elvis and Gladys", Elaine Dundy also states that Presley's great-  great-grandmother Nancy Burdine Tackett  was Jewish, citing a third cousin   of Presley's, Oscar Tackett.  However, there is no evidence that the Presley   family shared this belief and the syndicated columnist and Jewish genealogist Nate Bloom has challenged the cousin's account, which he calls a "tall tale".

Presley was not Jewish. 

Yes, some sources repeat a tall tale that Presley's third cousin told 20 years ago to a Jewish biographer of Presley. This cousin said that he and Presley shared a very remote Jewish maternal ancestor (a woman who lived in the early to mid 1800's)

This biographer did no further checking on this cousin's story. She just reported it as "fact."

Why would a Jew from Lithuania have a family name of Burdine which comes from that Medieval landscape of northwestern France known as Brittany.  

Even fewer have checked to see that there was a well-known Burdine family in North East Mississippi in Verona, Mississippi and that Nadine may have been one of them.

According to Seth Rogovoy in his January 7th, 2021 article in the Forward entitled; "Was Elvis Presley actually the Jewish Elvis?" 

"At the same time that Gladys told Elvis of his Jewish lineage, she also warned him to keep it to himself, because “some people don’t like Jews.” Among those to whom Gladys was referring was her husband, Elvis’s father Vernon, as well as to the members of the extended Presley clan, all of whom were Jew-haters."

"The Presleys were churchgoers, and Elvis’s sincere belief in Christian teachings seems also to have predisposed him to be fond of Jews. Chartock quotes Larry Geller — one of the Jewish members of the Memphis Mafia and the one who served as Elvis’s “spiritual advisor” — paraphrasing Presley thusly:

“Man, it used to confuse the hell outta me as a kid. In church all they talked about was how great all the Jews were, Abraham, Moses, Ezekiel, and all those other prophets. They were all Jewish. But outside of church, they would talk about ‘those damn Jews.’ They would put them down. I just couldn’t understand it.”

A detailed check of ALL available records has shown that this maternal ancestor was not Jewish. What was true was that Presley and his parents did share a two-family house in Memphis, Tenn. with a poor Orthodox rabbi and his family in the early '50s.

Memphis native Harold Fruchter, son of the late Rabbi Alfred Fruchter, reminiscing about his family’s relationship with Elvis Presley. Stated in a Podcast that Elvis lived downstairs from the Fruchter's as a teenager and had befriended them and occasionally served as their Shabbos goy performing certain types of work that religious law prohibits Jews from doing on the Sabbath, like turning lights on and off. 

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.

Elvis’s and Harold’s mothers were friendly and Mrs. Fruchter sometimes helped the impoverished Presley's with the grocery bills.... they weren’t aware that Elvis was himself Jewish. 

Harold Fruchter was quite adamant that if his Orthodox Rabbi father had know in the least that Pressley was Jewish the rabbi would have let him serve as Shabbos goy. It would have amounted to suborning chilul Shabbos.

“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.’”

"I spoke to the daughter of this rabbi. Her mother, the rabbi's wife, and Presley's mother, Gladys, were close friends. Gladys, her mother told her, never said a word about any Jewish ancestry. Her mother said that if Gladys had any knowledge of any Jewish ancestor, the mother was sure Gladys wouldn't have hesitated to mention it. 

If anything Gladys was friendly and out going and as a Church going Evangical Christian she "honored" Jews. 

As I often tell people, the true story of the lovely relations between this rabbi's family and the Presley family is a more important and meaningful story than a story about Presley having a remote Jewish maternal ancestor." 

Nate Bloom, "The Jews Who Wrote Christmas Songs". 

I am aware of the "tales" that Elvis’ maternal great-great grandmother, Nancy Burdine, was an immigrant from Lithuania and was BELIEVED to be Jewish. But it is ONLY a story. 

It is true that some of the first Ashkenazic Jewish families in the "Deep South" were immigrants from the Baltic Sea region specifically Lithuania I know because there are some in my family. So "IF" Nancy Burdine -HAD been "one of us" my family would have known. 

In my extensive research I have never encountered proof at all to her Jewishness. 

As we know according to Jewish law, the matriarchal lineage by way of the mother, would have made Elvis technically a Jew.

It is TRUE that Nancy Burdine gave birth to Doll Mansell, who gave birth to Elvis’ mother, Gladys Smith. But NONE of them ever revealed any Jewishness. 

My great  Aunts-the Cherner twins- Sadie and Fannie Levy literally knew EVERY Jewish family in the area. And I can tell you that Elvis was NOT Jewish! 

There is a Joke among the Jews that. "the Torah was originally "Baal Pe" memorized and repeated by mouth" and our Yentas were our record keepers and fore runner to the Mossad in Intelligence gathering!

Part of my Momma's family have lived from the 1860 in the area of North western Alabama  and when I say All the "Old Time" families -ESPECIALLY the Yentas they KNEW every Jew in the area of Mississippi, Tennessee (Memphis), Arkansas and Missouri you can bet THEY DID!!

Believe me when I say we LONG time Southern Jews KNOW who married WHO. 

Consider -think on this as I did. 

Do as I, research of ALL of Elvis Pressly's talks. interviews and quotes where and try to find one quote where he MENTIONs his Jewish roots or that of his mother.

Elvis was by no means a "simple' person and it is frankly quite mystifying that even though there is tons of interviews and recordings, at NO time even when recording was available specifically regarding his wearing the "CHAI" does he state that it related to his being a Jew. 

THE only mention I found was in his remembrances of his "Jewish Pals" from Memphis. Nowhere does he state; "I am a Jew" or that his MOTHER or grandmother were Jewish!!!!

In conclusion:

Hearsay is NOT proof!

Wearing jewelry with a Chai or Star of David does not a Jew make!

Nor does engraving a "Star of David on a tombstone with a cross does not a Jew make!

Unless the only child of singer and actor Elvis Presley, actress Priscilla Presley, gets a DNA test to prove it, only then will Presley's real link to Judaism be factually proven! 

Until then. I personally will believe what my old Aunts Fannie and Sadie would say on the matter!

No, he was not Jewish. A Mensch yes, but Jewish NO.