Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

August 26, 2026

Dolly Parton’s Jewish Collaborators, and Her Love of the Jewish Bible

“Nobody could quite get how the Christian Southern girl and the New York Jewish boy could have so much in common.”

The much beloved and admired country singer Dolly Parton died yesterday at the age of eighty. In 2020, Seth Rogovoy pointed out that Parton had been an avid reader of the Bible since her childhood, and that the Hebrew Bible in particular informed several of her songs, including “Coat of Many Colors” and “The Master’s Hand”—the latter drawing on the book of Daniel. She also benefited from close collaboration with Jews:

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