The Jewish Voice of Dolly Parton

Was Dolly Parton Jewish? (The answer isn't what The Forward said) When a beloved celebrity dies, The Forward runs some version of the same article: their "secret connection" to the Jewish people. Dolly Parton got hers too, citing the Jewish songwriters behind "Here You Come Again," her longtime manager Sandy Gallin, and the Imagination Library, which inspired PJ Library. It's a stretch. Dolly Parton was not Jewish. But The Forward missed the actual Jewish thing about her, and it wasn't in her biography. It was in her voice. There's a crack in it, a quiver that sounds almost like crying. In Jewish tradition we have a word for that sound: krechtz. It's the break in a cantor's voice, the sound klezmer music has been chasing for a century. Not a flaw. The whole point. This week's Torah portion, Ki Tavo, tells us the Israelites cried out to God from Egypt, and God heard not their words but their cry. A Hasidic story about a disciple of the Baal Shem Tov who lost his prepared meditation before blowing the shofar and wept instead, and was told that a broken heart is the master key that opens every door. And Dolly Parton singing "I Will Always Love You" with a quiver in her voice that does something different than Whitney Houston's bigger, more polished version. A cry doesn't just break you open. It lets someone else in. Sources referenced in this video: The Forward, "The Secret Jewish History of Dolly Parton" — https://forward.com/culture/459683/th... Deuteronomy 26:7 (Parashat Ki Tavo) — https://www.sefaria.org/Deuteronomy.26.7 #DollyParton #Krechtz #KiTavo #JewishSoul #RabbiJosh