12 Celebrities Who Are Surprisingly Jewish — You Won't Believe Number 1

Everyone knows Barbara Streisand is Jewish. Everyone knows about Jerry Seinfeld, Adam Sandler, and Gal Gadot. But Jewish heritage in Hollywood, in music, in sports, and across global entertainment runs far deeper and far wider than most people realize. Some of the biggest names on the planet carry Jewish roots that rarely make headlines and that sometimes surprise even their own fans. Today we are counting down 12 celebrities whose Jewish heritage will genuinely surprise you. Some of them are proudly Jewish and have been telling us for years while nobody paid attention. Others carry Jewish ancestry so deeply buried in their family histories that even their own fans have no idea. And each one of these stories reveals something deeper about how Jewish identity has traveled, adapted, and persisted We start the countdown at number 12. If you find these stories fascinating, make sure you subscribe to Bloodlines and Borders. We start with someone whose Jewish identity has been hiding in plain sight because he has been telling you about it in his music for years. Drake, born Aubrey Drake Graham in Toronto, was raised Jewish by his Ashkenazi mother whose family descended from Lithuanian and Russian Jews. His father is a black American musician from Memphis, Tennessee. After his parents divorced when he was five, Drake moved with his mother to an affluent Jewish neighborhood in Toronto and attended a school with a large Jewish student body. He had a bar mitzvah as a teenager, though it was a modest affair because his family was struggling financially. Years later, after becoming one of the best-selling musicians in history, Drake threw himself a rebar mitzvah with all the extravagance his 13-year-old self could never have imagined. He has proudly identified himself as a Canadian Jew in songs and interviews and in a world where most people assume Jewish identity looks one particular way, Drake's existence as a biracial, black and Jewish hip-hop artist has challenged assumptions on every side. 11. Adam Levine We start with the frontman of Maroon 5 and long-time judge on The Voice. Adam Levine is Jewish through his father's side. His paternal grandparents were Jewish, though his mother is not a practicing Jew and his family was never particularly religious. Levine's father gave him the freedom to choose his own religious path and in multiple interviews, Levine has self-identified as Jewish even though he describes himself as not very observant. His story reflects a pattern common in American Jewish life, a family where the ethnic and cultural identity persists even as formal religious practice quietly fades across generations. 10. Charlie Puth You probably know him from See You Again with Wiz Khalifa, a song that has surpassed 5 billion views on YouTube, making it one of the most watched music videos in history. What you probably do not know is that Charlie Puth grew up with a Jewish mother and a Catholic father. He attended Catholic school, but in interviews he has referred to his mother as my Jewish mother with unmistakable warmth. Puth acknowledges his Jewish background openly, though he is not a practicing Jew. His heritage is Ashkenazi on his mother's side, connecting him to the same Eastern European Jewish communities that sent millions of immigrants to America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 9. Gabriel Macht If you watched Suits, you know him as Harvey Specter, one of the most iconic television characters of the last decade. What you might not know is that Gabriel Macht is 100% Jewish. Both of his parents are Jewish. His paternal grandfather was born in Ukraine and his grandmother in Russia. His grandparents on the other side were born in the United States and raised as European Jews. Macht was born in the Bronx, raised Jewish, and his father even served as a Jewish chaplain. For viewers who spent nine seasons watching Harvey Specter dominate New York courtrooms, the revelation that the actor behind the character comes from a deeply Jewish family adds an unexpected layer to one of television's most beloved roles. 8. Emanuel Lubezki This one is for the film lovers. Emanuel Lubezki is the legendary cinematographer who won three consecutive Academy Awards for Gravity, Birdman, and The Revenant. He is famous for his use of natural light and long, uncut takes, and many consider him the greatest living cinematographer. He is also very Jewish. Lubezki was born and raised in Mexico City. His paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants, one from Russia and one from Lithuania, who migrated to Mexico separately before meeting and marrying there. His father married a fellow Mexican-born Jewish woman, the economist Raquel Morgenstern. Lubezki represents a chapter of Jewish history that most people outside Latin America know nothing about. The wave of Eastern European Jewish immigration to Mexico in the early 20th century that created a thriving community of over 50,000 Jews that persists to this day. 7. P. N. K. Born Alicia Beth Moore, the powerhouse singer, has described herself as an Irish-German-Lithuanian Jew, which captures the layered identity that defines so many American Jews. P. N. K. was born to a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish father, and while she is not known for being particularly observant, her connection to her heritage is genuine and active. A video surfaced several years ago of P. N. K. and her family chanting the Hanukkah blessings together at home, and she has been photographed educating her children about their ancestry at a Holocaust museum. In a music industry where very few artists publicly acknowledge Jewish identity unless it is central to their brand, P. N. K. is quietly passing her heritage down to the next generation, making her one of the most visible Jewish mothers in popular music, even if most of her fans have never once thought of her that way. 6. Daniel Radcliffe Yes, Harry Potter is Jewish. Daniel Radcliffe's mother, Marcia Jeanine Jacobson, was born in South Africa to a family of Jewish immigrants from Russia and Poland. By Jewish religious law, which traces identity through the mother, Radcliffe is unambiguously Jewish. He has made humorous remarks about his religion in interviews and has been described by various sources as an atheist, but the heritage is real and documented. Radcliffe's maternal ancestors were part of the massive wave of Eastern European Jewish migration that scattered communities across the globe from New York to Johannesburg to London. The boy who lived, it turns out, comes from a people who have been surviving against the odds for rather longer than 7 books and 8 films. If they ever make another sequel, someone should suggest Harry Potter and the Missing Bar Mitzvah. If you find these stories fascinating, make sure you subscribe to Bloodlines and Borders. Number 5. Timothée Chalamet. The Oscar-nominated star of Dune, Call Me By Your Name, and Little Women grew up in a household where Jewish holidays were a regular part of life. Chalamet's mother is Jewish, of Russian and Austrian Jewish descent. His father is French. He was raised in New York and spent summers in France visiting his Protestant grandparents, giving him a genuinely bicultural and bireligious upbringing. Chalamet is not particularly vocal about his Jewish identity, but his mother and siblings have posted images on social media of menorahs and other Jewish observances. By maternal descent, one of the most talked-about actors of his generation is considered Jewish under traditional religious law. Number 4. Scarlett Johansson. The Danish surname throws everyone off. Most people assume Scarlett Johansson has a Scandinavian background, which is true on her father's side. But her mother, Melanie Sloan, is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, and Johansson has stated in interviews that she identifies as Jewish. She was raised with basic observance of Shabbat and Jewish holidays, and she even speaks a smattering of Yiddish. When she appeared on the PBS show Finding Your Roots, she broke down in tears upon learning the specific details of her family's Holocaust experiences, a moment that revealed just how personal this heritage remains for her, even as one of the most famous women in the world. Johansson has also been outspoken about her Jewish identity in the context of her career, and she has played Jewish characters in multiple films. The woman behind Black Widow carries a family history that connects directly to one of the darkest chapters in human history, and unlike many celebrities on this list, she has never shied away from claiming it. This one is not just surprising, it is deeply moving. Mila Kunis was born Milena Markovna Kunis to a Jewish family in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, which was then part of the Soviet Union. She has spoken openly about the fact that her family had to hide their Jewish identity out of fear of persecution. In the Soviet system, being Jewish meant being marked for discrimination, in education, employment, and daily life. Most of her extended family was killed in the Holocaust. When her parents immigrated to the United States when she was seven years old, they arrived with $250 and no English. Kunis has described arriving in America unable to understand a single word anyone said to her. She went from hiding her faith in Soviet Ukraine to becoming one of the most bankable actresses in Hollywood, starring in That 70s Show, Black Swan, and dozens of other films. Today she is married to Ashton Kutcher, and her story is one of the starkest reminders on this list that Jewish identity, for millions of people across the 20th century, was not a cultural label or an interesting fact about your background. It was a matter of life and death. The distance between hiding your faith in the Soviet Union and walking the red carpet at the Academy Awards is the entire arc of 20th century Jewish survival compressed into a single life. This is the one that floors people. David Beckham, arguably the most famous soccer player in the history of the sport, identifies as half-Jewish. Beckham was extremely close to his maternal grandfather, Joseph, who was Jewish, and he has described him as the man he looked up to most in the world. According to Beckham, both of his maternal grandparents were Jewish. In his autobiography, Beckham wrote that he probably had more contact with Judaism than with any other religion. He has spoken in interviews about receiving warmth and support from the Jewish community because of his heritage, and he occasionally wears a Star of David necklace. The man who bent free kicks past the greatest goalkeepers on earth, who became a global brand worth hundreds of millions of dollars, who is arguably the most recognized athlete in the history of world football, was shaped in part by a Jewish grandfather whose faith quietly influenced the family for generations. For most people, that is among the most surprising revelations on this entire list. Number one, Bruno Mars. And the number one spot goes to a name that almost nobody in the world associates with Jewish heritage. Bruno Mars, born Peter Gene Hernandez, is one of the most successful and beloved musicians on the planet. His background is a genuine mosaic of global ancestry so complex, it almost defies belief. His mother was Filipino, Spanish, and Chinese. His father was of Puerto Rican descent, born in New York. But his father's family also carried Jewish heritage of Hungarian and Ukrainian origin. Bruno Mars has acknowledged this Jewish lineage publicly, though he rarely discusses it in detail. Some fans have speculated that his album title, Unorthodox Jukebox, was a subtle nod to this heritage, though Mars has never confirmed it. What is confirmed is that one of the world's most celebrated musicians, a man whose sound draws from funk, soul, reggae, R&B, and pop, whose concerts sell out stadiums on every continent, carries within his DNA a thread that connects him to the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe, communities that were nearly destroyed in the 20th century, but whose descendants ended up in places and in families that nobody would ever expect. Bruno Mars is living proof that Jewish ancestry does not come with a single look, a single sound, or a single story. It comes in every form imaginable. And sometimes it is hiding inside the most famous smile in music. And that is the real point of this list. Jewish identity does not look one way. It never has. It has traveled with merchants and refugees, with immigrants and exiles, with people who wore it proudly and people who hid it to survive. From the shtetls of Lithuania to the stages of Madison Square Garden, from the pogroms of Ukraine to the red carpets of the Academy Awards, the Jewish story is not one story. It is millions of stories woven into the fabric of every society Jewish people have ever touched. These twelve celebrities are proof of that. And they are almost certainly not the only surprising names on a list that, if you traced it to its full length, would stretch far longer than anyone expects. If you know of other celebrities who should have been on this list, drop their names in the comments. You might just inspire a part two. If you find these stories fascinating, make sure you subscribe to Bloodlines and Borders. Thank you for watching. If you want to go deeper, the next video on your screen is one you won't want to miss. I'll see you there.