I loved his voice, I loved that sidelong smile that would suddenly appear, but to me, he was more like a brother than an idol.  I watched all his television appearances, except the one on the Steve Allen show, and loved the last one with the leather jacket most.  That was the only one I thought was sexy.  The first one seemed kind of antsy to me, like he was a repressed white guy. But tonight the film kind of shocked me.  From our visit to Graceland almost 20 years ago I knew he was Jewish, because of the star of David on his brother’s memorial marker (that seems to have since disappeared) and on his necklaces, that he worked for Jews as a young man, and that the record company that gave him, and his fellow local singers, their first recordings, were Jewish.  But I didn’t know until I looked it up a while ago that his mother was Jewish – and Elvis knew it.

The film gives proper credit to the early Black singers – even when they are not mentioned by name – Little Richard, Big Mama Thornton – but doesn’t say anything about the fact that many of the songs were written by Jews, like Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.  

Why should I care?  Am I a Jew hunter?  Maybe.  But when this film so closely follows on the opening of the Museum of Film Industry in Los Angeles that skipped the fact that Jews built that industry, I am beginning to feel a rewriting of history that simply erases my people.  I don’t want to be erased simply because I am Jewish.