"And, to finally dispose of the obvious: if she were Jewish, would that make him halachically Jewish? She being his mother’s mother’s mother’s mother and all that? I don’t know, I don’t particularly care, and in any case it’s a moot point."
I agree that the hypothesis that Elvis was (or is, if you think he's still around) Jewish is highly questionable.
But the question above that you don't care about is the only question that matters, if you mean Jewish from a religious point of view, which is what everybody else who considers the question is referring to. The answer, by the way, is Yes. Otherwise, they wouldn't even be trying to trace him to a single purely maternal Jewish ancestor. And so, in addition, if a maternally Jewish female ancestor married a low-life dirt farmer or a wealthy WASP doctor, that has no bearing whatsoever on the question. The daughter would still be Jewish.
Jewish biological ethnicity is a completely different meaning of the term Jewish. From that point of view, I if either spouse was Jewish, the offspring if 50% Jewish. Religiously, it's all or nothing. Certainly, as far back as early 19th century, there would likely not be a detectable autosomal DNA trace, but if Elvis's mitochondrial DNA haplotype were known, that would weigh on one side of the scale or another — strongly, in case of some haplotypes.
The fact that current place names are used to name origins is completely irrelevant. Often, these days, people report the old-country origins of their families using the names of those places NOW. My grandfather immigrated from Laižuva, Lithuania, even though Lithuania did not exist as a country then and in Yiddish it was Lyzeveh. He always said Russia, and indeed it was part of the Russian empire when he emigrated. A couple of generations earlier, it would have been the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. For lookup, Jewishgen.com always uses contemporary political divisions and names, extending to the exact spelling, including special characters, that are used in the current official language of the region. They do supply tools to help you find it if you know it by a different name.
Finally, part of the story that you don't discuss is that, at least according to those who believe it, Elvis's mother believed she was Jewish and told him not to tell his father. According to this narrative, that is why Elvis had the Jewish star placed on her tombstone after his father's death. Though, as you point out, not all these beliefs are well-founded, it is also the case that some are, so that should also be considered.
Thanks for the comment, Peter. I'm being a little glib about my ignorance. And I do care, at least intellectually. Sure, I suppose it'd make him hallachically Jewish. But I was trying to nod at the exponentially increasing absurdity of using the pure matrilineal line if it's more than 4-5 generations in the past. Has a "Jewish" mtDNA haplogroup been identified? I haven't been paying attention. But you see where I'm going. And you could imagine something like a billion living people being descended matrilineally from the same 12th century BCE Israelite (say, Deborah). Surely they are not all Jewish. Then you've got the converse (or converso, ha) problem--namely that the DNA evidence seems to show most Ashkenazim are patrilineally Jewish but matrillineally Gentile. Are the modern Ashkenazi therefore not Jewish? Or do you just need someone somewhere in your maternal line to be Jewish, even if she converted and neither her parents nor her children were of the same faith? A Jewish isolate. This is where my faux ignorance and my real ignorance meet: perhaps some learned scholar has already addressed this in the midrashic literature.
To the extent there was a real tradition in Elvis's family, I am sure it was simply that some ancestor was Jewish, and not that it was specifically Nancy, and certainly not that she was specifically from Lithuania. Those details both smack of post-hoc fabrication. Someone went through Elvis's tree, plucked a name and gave her an unlikely birthplace. If there were some record of Elvis's mother telling him: "oh yes, my grandmother was from Keidan," then of course I'd have no quibble with Lithuania vs. the Russian Empire. The problem with Lithuania isn't the nomenclature, it's the improbability of a Lithuanian immigrant (even a Catholic Lithuanian or Pole) finding their way to the antebellum southern backcountry.
"And, to finally dispose of the obvious: if she were Jewish, would that make him halachically Jewish? She being his mother’s mother’s mother’s mother and all that? I don’t know, I don’t particularly care, and in any case it’s a moot point."
I agree that the hypothesis that Elvis was (or is, if you think he's still around) Jewish is highly questionable.
But the question above that you don't care about is the only question that matters, if you mean Jewish from a religious point of view, which is what everybody else who considers the question is referring to. The answer, by the way, is Yes. Otherwise, they wouldn't even be trying to trace him to a single purely maternal Jewish ancestor. And so, in addition, if a maternally Jewish female ancestor married a low-life dirt farmer or a wealthy WASP doctor, that has no bearing whatsoever on the question. The daughter would still be Jewish.
Jewish biological ethnicity is a completely different meaning of the term Jewish. From that point of view, I if either spouse was Jewish, the offspring if 50% Jewish. Religiously, it's all or nothing. Certainly, as far back as early 19th century, there would likely not be a detectable autosomal DNA trace, but if Elvis's mitochondrial DNA haplotype were known, that would weigh on one side of the scale or another — strongly, in case of some haplotypes.
The fact that current place names are used to name origins is completely irrelevant. Often, these days, people report the old-country origins of their families using the names of those places NOW. My grandfather immigrated from Laižuva, Lithuania, even though Lithuania did not exist as a country then and in Yiddish it was Lyzeveh. He always said Russia, and indeed it was part of the Russian empire when he emigrated. A couple of generations earlier, it would have been the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. For lookup, Jewishgen.com always uses contemporary political divisions and names, extending to the exact spelling, including special characters, that are used in the current official language of the region. They do supply tools to help you find it if you know it by a different name.
Finally, part of the story that you don't discuss is that, at least according to those who believe it, Elvis's mother believed she was Jewish and told him not to tell his father. According to this narrative, that is why Elvis had the Jewish star placed on her tombstone after his father's death. Though, as you point out, not all these beliefs are well-founded, it is also the case that some are, so that should also be considered.
Thanks for the comment, Peter. I'm being a little glib about my ignorance. And I do care, at least intellectually. Sure, I suppose it'd make him hallachically Jewish. But I was trying to nod at the exponentially increasing absurdity of using the pure matrilineal line if it's more than 4-5 generations in the past. Has a "Jewish" mtDNA haplogroup been identified? I haven't been paying attention. But you see where I'm going. And you could imagine something like a billion living people being descended matrilineally from the same 12th century BCE Israelite (say, Deborah). Surely they are not all Jewish. Then you've got the converse (or converso, ha) problem--namely that the DNA evidence seems to show most Ashkenazim are patrilineally Jewish but matrillineally Gentile. Are the modern Ashkenazi therefore not Jewish? Or do you just need someone somewhere in your maternal line to be Jewish, even if she converted and neither her parents nor her children were of the same faith? A Jewish isolate. This is where my faux ignorance and my real ignorance meet: perhaps some learned scholar has already addressed this in the midrashic literature.
To the extent there was a real tradition in Elvis's family, I am sure it was simply that some ancestor was Jewish, and not that it was specifically Nancy, and certainly not that she was specifically from Lithuania. Those details both smack of post-hoc fabrication. Someone went through Elvis's tree, plucked a name and gave her an unlikely birthplace. If there were some record of Elvis's mother telling him: "oh yes, my grandmother was from Keidan," then of course I'd have no quibble with Lithuania vs. the Russian Empire. The problem with Lithuania isn't the nomenclature, it's the improbability of a Lithuanian immigrant (even a Catholic Lithuanian or Pole) finding their way to the antebellum southern backcountry.