Who better to ask all your Hanukkah related questions than Hollywood’s Jewish stars! (Photo: WENN)
Elizabeth Banks—The funny girl was not raised Jewish. But she went through some steps to convert for her husband, Max Handelman, whom she met on the first day of college at the University of Pennsylvania. (Photo: WENN)
Jennifer Connelly— The actress’s mother, Ilene, is Jewish and was brought up Orthodox. Her father was Irish Catholic. Speaking about her half-Catholic, half-Jewish background, Connelly has joked that she was “raised with a double dose of guilt.” (Photo: WENN)
Drake— The Canadian recording artist has a Jewish mother. She raised him in a heavily Jewish neighborhood in Toronto and he attended Jewish day school. He also had a bar mitzvah, a Jewish rite of passage and celebration of entry into adulthood. (Photo: WENN)
Gwyneth Paltrow— Her paternal great-great-grandfather, whose surname was “Paltrowicz,” was a rabbi in Poland. Some would not consider her truly Jewish, as Judaism passes through the matriarchal line. But the actress has said that she plans to raise her two children Jewish. She did name her son Moses, after all. (Photo: WENN)
Rashida Jones— The beautiful young actress is the daughter of music mogul Quincy Jones. Her mother is Jewish, with roots in Russia and Latvia. Though Jones stopped attending Hebrew school at age 10, and was not bat mitzvah-ed, she has stated that she practices Judaism today. (Photo: WENN)
Jake Gyllenhaal— The actor’s mother, screenwriter Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal, is from a Jewish family in Brooklyn, and Gyllenhaal has said that he considers himself Jewish. His sister Maggie said that the family celebrated Jewish holidays growing up. (Photo: WENN)
Scarlett Johansson— The bombshell’s surname name comes from her father’s Danish side, but her mother, Melanie Sloan, is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Sloan raised Johansson with a basic observance of Shabbat and the high holidays. (Photo: WENN)
Dianna Agron—The young Glee star’s father came from a Jewish family, and her mother converted. Agron was raised Jewish; she attended Hebrew school and had a bat mitzvah. (Photo: WENN)
Lenny Kravitz—The musician’s father came from a Russian Jewish family, with roots in modern day Ukraine. When Kravitz was 5 years old, his mother told him, “You are just as much white as you are black, just as much Russian Jew as you are African-American.” (Photo: WENN)
Ivanka Trump—No, Ivana and Donald are not Jewish. But the oldest Trump daughter converted to Judaism in 2009 in order to marry her now-husband Jared Kushner. The two married a few months after her conversion was complete, in an Orthodox ceremony at the Trump National Golf Course in New Jersey. (Photo: WENN)
Winona Ryder— The Strange Things star and ’90s it girl and icon was actually born Winona Horowitz and had Jewish grandparents who emigrated from Russia. (Photo: WENN)
Paul Rudd— Rudd’s parents emigrated from Russia and Poland to England, and changed their surname from “Rudnitzky” to “Rudd”. After which, they moved to New Jersey and gave the world Paul Rudd. (Photo: WENN)
Diane Von Furstenberg—Her mother was a Holocaust survivor, who was ironically saved by notorious Nazi doctor Josef Mengele from the gas chambers at Auschwitz. To this day, she is still dedicated to Jewish causes, even donating $12 million restore the historic Venice Jewish ghetto. (Photo: WENN)
Isla Fisher— The Aussie redhead is another funny girl who converted to Judaism in order to wed her Jewish then-fiancé (now husband), Sacha Baron Cohen, famous for his role as “Borat.” (Photo: WENN)
Ah, Hanukkah! That time of the year for Jews everywhere to get together to light the menorah, sing Ma’Oz Tzur, and feast on a kosher dinner! Its also a time for gentiles to ask questions like “So… what’s the deal with Hannukkah?” and “How do you spell Hakuna Matta?” and “Why does it keep moving around the calendar like the Maccabeans wandering in the desert?”
These are good questions; deep questions. And who better to ask than Hollywood’s Jewish stars! But who’s Jewish? It’s no shock that certain actors are from the tribe (shalom, Natalie Portman!), but bombshell Scarlett Johansson? Really? Her Jewish faith is certainly not the first thing that comes to mind…
