When singer, actor and absolute angel on earth Dolly Parton passed away last month at the age of 80, tributes poured in from, well, everyone (my personal favorite may have been this bizarre yet heartfelt moment from Pitbull).
Jewish spaces, too, have been generous in their tributes to Parton.
Congregation Adat Reyim in Northern Virginia and Washington Hebrew Congregation in Bethesda delighted congregants by setting the closing Shabbat prayer Adon Olam to the tune of “Jolene” at the first Shabbat after Parton’s death. Bet Am Shalom in Westchester, New York used “9 to 5” for the melody. Greta Rosenstock Kramer, Director of Congregational Music at United Hebrew Congregation in St. Louis, performed Parton’s song “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” on the bima at Shabbat services. The rabbi and Youtuber Rabbi Esther posted a beautiful rendition of L’cha Dodi, also to the tune of “Jolene.” (As self-proclaimed Jewish parody experts, we anticipate an increase in Dolly Parton Jewish holiday parodies this year.)
But one tribute that caught the eye of the Kveller editors actually came together back in 2023, when Jewish singer and artist Lea Kalisch recorded a version of Parton’s 1980 hit song “9 to 5” in Yiddish, translated by activist, author and Yiddishist Ellen Cassedy.
Kalisch told Kveller that Cassedy reached out to her in 2023. “She said, ‘I love your stuff. Can you sing ‘9 to 5’ in Yiddish? I have a translation.’”
As if that weren’t sufficiently cool (dayenu!), what takes this version over the top is that Ellen Cassedy literally inspired Parton’s song.
In 1971, Cassedy, the granddaughter of Lithuanian Jews, and her friend Karen Nussbaum worked together in an office at Harvard. Quite quickly, the two friends and the rest of the women in the office realized they were being treated unfairly — and that they could do something about it. They started the organization 9to5 in 1973 to respond to inequities and harassment they and other women faced.
The work inspired Nussbaum’s friend Jane Fonda — the two knew each other through antiwar advocacy — and gave her the idea for a movie.
“Jane Fonda came to us and said she wanted to make a movie about the concerns of office workers,” Ellen Cassedy said in 2023, speaking at Kalisch’s show Shtetl Cabaret before a performance of the Yiddish ‘9 to 5.’ “We were thrilled. She brought her team to meet with our members, and they popped a question none of us had ever thought of. ‘Have you ever fantasized about doing in your boss?’”
Cassedy says that after a stunned silence, the group unanimously answered that yes, not only had they thought about this, they had created detailed fantasies, many of which made it into the film. That film, of course, is “9 to 5,” starring Fonda, Parton and Lily Tomlin. Parton’s song of the same name was written for the film.
In the late 1980s, Cassedy, who was by then a writer, decided to learn Yiddish after her mother’s death as a way to stay connected with her roots. She studied at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute, among other places, and went on to become a prolific Yiddish translator. She told the audience at Shtetl Cabaret that one night she just decided to try to translate Parton’s “9 to 5” into Yiddish.
The result, and Kalisch’s recording, are a beautiful piece of the Jewish Dolly Parton musical universe.
“It was so amazing to find out the backstory to the song,” Kalisch told Kveller. “Life is about story. I love things that are rooted in reality and take on a creative new life.”
She says she regrets not sending the song to Parton.
“I wish I could have sent it to Dolly and heard her laugh.”
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