10 Celebrities You Didn’t Know Celebrate Rosh Hashanah

Growing up in Florida in a coastal community along the Gulf, I never knew any Jewish families. You either went to the local Presbyterian, Methodist, Catholic or Baptist church and that was that. At 32-years-old, I’ve never even been to a bar or bat mitzvah, which is something I wish I’d been able to experience growing up. Very strong in my own faith, I love other’s faiths and their own beliefs and have no problem with people’s different religions – and their coming of age parties always sounded like so much fun!

It’s not often you find people in Hollywood discussing their religion. Perhaps it’s because they want to discuss their upcoming work, or no one asks about it, or people are more concerned with juicy gossip. Whatever it is, it is part of the reason that most of us had no idea that these 10 actor and actresses and other famous faces were Jewish. Did you have any idea that anyone on this list was a practicing Jew? I did not, but I think it’s awesome.

Lenny Kravitz

He doesn’t seem much like a Jewish man, having rarely ever spoken of his faith. However, his father was born into a very big family of believers, and he was raised Jewish. He and his family lived a lot of lives growing up with their mixture of heritage and their mixture of life, but they always taught Lenny Kravitz to be who he is and to believe in what he feels most passionate about.

Gwyneth Paltrow

One thing that always manages to surprise her fans is that she was raised part Jewish (can you be part-something in religion?). She has a great-great grandfather who lived and worked as rabbi in Poland, and her father was raised Jewish. It turns out that many people only believe that religion is passed own from the mother’s side of the family, but her family allowed her to experience and live out both of their religions growing up, and Gwyneth Paltrow has always embraced her Jewish heritage.

Isla Fisher

The lovely actress doesn’t seem Jewish, but she is. She’s actually from Australia, which is not exactly where you might imagine many Jewish people come from, but the faith is very much alive and well in the outback. She actually converted her religion for her husband, however. She was not born and raised into the Jewish faith, she did it when she married actor Sacha Baron Cohen, who is a Jewish man and has been his entire life.

Jake Gyllenhaal

Growing up, his family always celebrated the Jewish holidays. Jake Gyllenhaal was raised in a Jewish family, and he and his sister, actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, always lived their lives in the Jewish faith. They never questioned it or really thought much about it until they became adults, but we don’t know how they view their faith now that they are adults and no longer live with their Jewish mother.

Scarlett Johansson

She wasn’t as dedicated to the religion growing up as many Jewish believers, but her mother always made sure they celebrated the Jewish holidays and they always observed Shabbat growing up. She’s an adult now, but she’s not one who is open to discussing her faith very much. Or maybe she is, but no one has asked her about it in so long that she simply has not had the ability to discuss it further.

Marilyn Monroe

She was not born and raised in the Jewish faith, but the late bombshell was a practicing Jewish woman later in her short life. She was married to a man by the name of Arthur Miller in 1956. He was a famed playwright who was born and raised a Jewish man, and she converted her own faith for him. During the same year she was married, she converted to Judaism so that they could raise any potential children they might have in the future in the same faith as both their parents.

Elizabeth Taylor

The reasons that the famed actress and wife of many men in Hollywood decided to convert to Judaism is something that remains a bit of a mystery. There are a number of stories as to why she did it, but none of them are confirmed. Either way, she was an advocate for the faith until the day she died. She was only 27 when she converted, and she spent the rest of her life fighting for the faith. It’s admirable and lovely that she believed the way that she did.

Drake

He’s handsome, he’s in love with a woman from Barbados, and he’s a killer singer. He’s also Jewish. It turns out that his mother is actually a lifelong believer of the Jewish faith. He was raised in the faith, practiced it growing up, and has never wavered from it as far as we can tell. He even went to a Jewish school growing up in Canada, and he enjoyed a Bar Mitzvah when he became a young man – or a party that celebrates the day a young Jewish man becomes a man.

Ivanka Trump

The potential future first-daughter of the United States is a Jewish woman. Surprisingly, however, neither her mother or her father are Jewish. She converted to Judaism back in 2009 because she was marrying a man by the name of Jared Kushner, who is Jewish. Her wedding was a traditional Orthodox ceremony, and her decision to convert was very important to her husband and to his family for their own future and their own children – despite the fact that they had no children at the time.

Rachel Bilson

She seems like your typical California girl who spent her childhood living on the beach and celebrating Christmas with the family, but her father is Jewish and she was raised Jewish. It might be surprising to many of her fans, but it’s not something she has ever hidden from anyone. The one thing we will say about Rachel Bilson’s faith, however, is that we don’t know if she is raising her own child in the Jewish faith.