While it is hardly a secret that the so-called “King of Rock-and-Roll” had a very close relationship with an Orthodox Jewish family as a teenager, and that Jews penned the majority of his songs, it is less well known that he was himself of Jewish ancestry. He was, in fact, Jewish by halakhic standards. In a new book, Roselle Kline Chartock provides documentation for this claim, which Seth Rogovoy sums up in his review:
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More about: American Jewish History, Anti-Semitism, Philo-Semitism, Popular music