Picture this: Your friend is talking to you about the latest pop culture feud. You’re not really listening. But you gather it’s something to do with the movie adaption of the Colleen Hoover novel “It Ends With Us,” actress Blake Lively, actor-director Justin Baldoni, a weird red carpet Q&A with cast member and Jewish comedian Jenny Slate and an emergency PR team. Will you ever learn what actually happened on the set of “It Ends With Us?” No, and probably no one else will either. But since you crave all things Jewish pop culture, you wonder if you’d be more interested in the drama if there were a Jewish angle.
Hey Alma has got you.
Let’s investigate whether the man at the center of the feud, Justin Baldoni, is Jewish.
If you’ve been following along with our previous investigations of this nature, you know that we’re looking to check at least one of two boxes. Does Justin Baldoni identify as culturally or religiously Jewish? And/or, does Justin Baldoni have Jewish ancestry? If the answer to either of those questions is a resounding yes, he’s a member of the tribe!
Let’s start with the first question: Does Justin Baldoni identify as culturally or religiously Jewish? In terms of religiosity, the answer is no. Justin is very public about the fact that he practices the Baháʼí Faith after becoming a Baháʼí as a teenager. According to bahai.org:
Bahá’í beliefs address such essential themes as the oneness of God and religion, the oneness of humanity and freedom from prejudice, the inherent nobility of the human being, the progressive revelation of religious truth, the development of spiritual qualities, the integration of worship and service, the fundamental equality of the sexes, the harmony between religion and science, the centrality of justice to all human endeavours, the importance of education, and the dynamics of the relationships that are to bind together individuals, communities, and institutions as humanity advances towards its collective maturity.
You can listen to Justin discuss his own understanding of the Baháʼí Faith in this recording of a 2021 Zoom he did with Baháʼí Faith Modern Perspectives on YouTube.
OK, so Justin Baldoni is not a religious Jew. Let’s come back to the second part of that question, whether or not he’s culturally Jewish, and focus on this question: Does Justin have Jewish ancestry?
The answer is yes! According to Justin’s IMDb page, his mom Sharon comes from an Ashkenazi Jewish family and his dad’s family is Italian. “My mom was Jewish and became a Baha’i before she met my dad, and when they fell in love he became a Baha’i,” Justin told InterfaithFamily.com. “But we celebrated Hanukkah and Christmas, as an ode to our grandparents. Baha’is have some amazing holidays and we did those too. It was a wonderful thing to grow up in an interfaith family.”
According to the same interview, Justin no longer celebrates Jewish holidays. But he’s proud of his Jewish heritage and family, who were affected by the Holocaust. “My grandfather was in WWII and a lot of my family was killed in the Holocaust,” he said. “One of my aunts was a survivor.”
Funnily enough, even though Justin’s mom is also Baha’i, it seems that Justin still thinks of her as a Jewish mom. In 2019 he tweeted this in response to somebody comparing him to Moses in “The Prince of Egypt“:
While it’s still unclear whether Justin identifies as culturally Jewish — not celebrating Jewish holidays but having a “very Jewish mom” provide conflicting clues on that front — we have enough information to render a verdict…
Verdict: Yes, Justin Baldoni has Jewish ancestry and is proud of it. However, he practices the Baháʼí Faith.
