7 celebrities who converted to Judaism

Fisher met Sacha Baron Cohen, a Jewish actor, in 2002 at a party in Australia, where she spent the majority of her childhood. The couple got engaged two years later.

"I will definitely have a Jewish wedding just to be with Sacha," Fisher told the London Evening Standard in 2004. "I would do anything — move into any religion — to be united in marriage with him. We have a future together, and religion comes second to love as far as we are concerned."

The actress officially converted to Judaism in 2007 and took on the Hebrew name Ayala, which translates to "doe." Fisher and Cohen were married in 2010.

Fisher has since expressed her love for the Jewish faith and her positive conversion experience, which she compared to being in school.

"I love the focus on family, food, and laughter," she told C Magazine in a 2013 interview, according to the Express. "You know, I didn't get to go to university because I've been acting since I was a kid. So, for me, studying theology was also fascinating. I love Judaism."

Deschanel grew up in a Catholic and Quaker household, but never ascribed to any particular faith until she converted to Judaism in 2015.

"My family is liberal. I was raised in the 'you can be whatever you want' kind of way. And in the end, I was like, 'Eh.' I mean I'm interested in theology, and I love reading about it. But I don't attach myself to any one religion or other," she told Vulture in 2011.

A few months after her wedding to Jacob Pechenik, a Jewish actor, Us Weekly reported that Deschanel had converted to Judaism. Deschanel and Pechenik were married for five years before their divorce in 2020. The actress has since started publicly dating "Property Brothers" star Jonathan Scott.

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner met at a networking lunch arranged by one of her longtime business partners in 2007 when they were both 25 years old.

"They very innocently set us up thinking that our only interest in one another would be transactional," Ivanka told Vogue in 2015. "Whenever we see them we're like, 'The best deal we ever made!'"

Trump and Kushner, who grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family, later broke up due to their religious differences: The Trump family is Presbyterian, while it was expected that Kushner would marry someone Jewish.

However, three months later, the pair got back together. By 2009, Trump had converted to Judaism and she and Kushner were engaged.

She and Kushner keep a kosher diet, which she described to Vogue in 2015, saying she stays away from raw fish and meat.

"I always shied away from it being a public conversation because it's such a personal thing," she said of her conversion to Judaism. "We're pretty observant, more than some, less than others. I just feel like it's such an intimate thing for us."

"It's been such a great life decision for me," she continued. "I am very modern, but I'm also a very traditional person, and I think that's an interesting juxtaposition in how I was raised as well. I really find that with Judaism, it creates an amazing blueprint for family connectivity."

She also said that their family observes the Sabbath.

"From Friday to Saturday we don't do anything but hang out with one another," she said. "We don't make phone calls."

Kloss converted to Judaism ahead of her 2018 wedding to businessman and investor Josh Kushner, six years after the pair started dating.

"Changing part of who you are for someone else can be seen as weak, but you know what? Actually, if you've been through what I've experienced, it requires you to be anything but weak. It requires me to be stronger and self-loving and resilient. I really did not take this lightly," she said during a 2019 interview with British Vogue.

Kloss also said that she didn't make the decision to convert just for her husband.

"It wasn't enough to just love Josh and make this decision for him. This is my life and I am an independent, strong woman. It was only after many years of studying and talking with my family and friends and soul searching that I made the decision to fully embrace Judaism in my life and start planning for a future with the man I chose to marry," she explained.

In 1955, Monroe took up a relationship with famed Jewish-American playwright Arthur Miller. According to Biography, Monroe had known him for years. At the time, however, Miller was married.

Monroe, whose mother was a practicing Christian Scientist, converted to Judaism ahead of her wedding to Miller. It was a decision she took seriously, according to the Jewish Chronicle; she studied texts with Miller's rabbi, Robert. E. Goldburg, who said Monroe liked "the rationalism of Judaism — its ethical and prophetic ideals and its concept of close family life."

On June 29, 1956, Monroe and Miller married. On July 1, in a more formal Jewish ceremony, the starlet was given away by teacher Lee Strasberg in front of just 25 guests, according to History Today.

Arthur Miller met photographer Inge Morath while working on the set of "The Misfits," Monroe's final film. He would eventually marry her after divorcing Monroe in 1962. It's believed that despite the dissolution of their marriage, Monroe continued to practice her Jewish faith. When she died, a menorah and a prayer book were both found in her possession.

While it's been said that Taylor converted to Judaism in order to marry Eddie Fisher, she actually said she'd wanted to do so for a long time.

"I feel as if I have been a Jew all my life," Taylor said after her conversion in 1959.

After her third husband Mike Todd, who was also Jewish, was killed in a plane crash in 1958, Taylor entered a public relationship with Eddie Fisher, who grew up in a Russian-Jewish household.

"Judaism had absolutely nothing to do with my past marriage to Mike [Todd] or my upcoming marriage to Eddie Fisher, both of whom were Jewish. It was something I had wanted to do for a long time," she said.

Fisher and Taylor were married in a Jewish ceremony at Temple Beth Sholom in Las Vegas on May 12, 1959. Her and Fisher's relationship was embroiled in scandal at the time, however, due to the fact that Fisher left his first wife, actress Carrie Fisher, to marry Taylor.

Eddie Fisher and Taylor divorced in 1964, the same year she married Richard Burton.

In 1954, Davis was involved in a major accident that caused him to lose his left eye. While in recovery at San Bernardino hospital, Davis met a Jewish chaplain and asked "a million questions about the miracle" of how he survived the crash, according to Biography. After learning more about the Jewish faith, Davis felt that Jews and Black people shared a similar history of oppression that he connected with.

In 1961, Davis converted to Judaism at a Las Vegas ceremony and later stated that he was "the only black, Puerto Rican, one-eyed, Jewish entertainer in the world."

Banks met her husband, Max Handelman, in 1992 when they were both students at the University of Pennsylvania. They were married in 2003 after Banks had started the process of converting and was studying with different rabbis.

"No religion meant as much to me as Judaism meant to my husband," Banks said on Marc Maron's podcast in 2013. "We got married after 10 and a half years, and for the first five years I'm positive that his father did not learn my last name."

"I did not have my mikveh, so technically I'm not converted," she said, explaining she wasn't in one place long enough to take the 11-week-long class, although she said she has been practicing for years.

"I've been essentially a Jew for like 15 years. I haven't had a Christmas tree in 15 years," she continued. "I'm not officially stamped, but by all accounts yes, my kids go to Jewish pre-school, we only celebrate Jewish holidays, I love seder. Frankly, because I'm already doing everything, I feel like I'm as Jewish as I'm ever going to be."

When Barrymore married art consultant Will Kopelman in 2012, she adopted many of his religious traditions, despite not officially converting. She also said that the couple was raising their daughters, Olive and Frankie, in the Jewish faith.

"I'm a shiksa. I do the seders and we do Passover. I haven't converted yet, [but] Olive will be raised traditionally," she said during a 2013 appearance on "The View," according to People. "We had a very traditional wedding ceremony with Rabbi Rubenstein and I did the ketubah. We wore the yarmulkes and we did the chuppah."

"It's a beautiful faith and I'm so honored to be around it," she continued. "It's so family-oriented … The stories are so beautiful and it's incredibly enlightening. I'm really happy."

Barrymore and Kopelman divorced in 2016, which the "50 First Dates" star called "really painful." In 2021, Kopelman married Alexandra Michler, the director of fashion initiatives at Vogue. Kopelman and Michler, whose mother is of Jewish descent, were also married in a traditional Jewish ceremony.