29-year-old actress and comedian Rachel Sennott has played a few Jewish roles in her career thus far. Most notably, she collaborated with Jewish filmmaker (and her college BFF) Emma Seligman on “Shiva Baby.” In the 2018 short film and subsequent 2020 hit feature film, Sennott plays Danielle, a young bisexual Jewish woman who runs into her sugar daddy and his family at a shiva. Seligman’s screenplay was inspired by her own experiences growing up in the Toronto Jewish community, and the whole thing is essentially a dissertation on Jewish neurosis.
Coincidentally, in 2020, Sennott starred in another queer Jewish film set at a funeral called “Tahara.” In it, she plays a Jewish teen who, according to screenwriter Jess Zeidman, is “realizing she’s not the center of the world.” And in 2024, Sennott took on the role of Rosie Shuster in “Saturday Night.” Shuster was one of the original writers on SNL and Lorne Michaels’ former wife, and is a Jewish woman.
Perhaps because of these roles, many in the Jewish community wonder whether or not Sennott is herself Jewish. And we’re not the only ones discussing her background. In 2023, Twitter user @miagothstan published the now-viral tweet:
So what is Rachel Sennott’s cultural background? And is she Jewish? It’s time to investigate.
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 Rachel Sennott identify as culturally or religiously Jewish? And/or, does Rachel Sennott have Jewish ancestry? If the answer to either of those questions is a resounding yes, she’s a member of the tribe!
As it turns out, the answer to whether Rachel Sennott has Jewish ancestry and whether she identifies as culturally or religious Jewish is intertwined. The short answer is no, Sennott isn’t culturally, religiously or ethnically Jewish. “She grew up in a Catholic Italian-Irish family, eating baked ziti and meatballs at wakes rather than rugelach at shivas,” writer Anne Cohen explained in her Refinery29 interview with Sennott about “Shiva Baby.” (Though, perhaps you could’ve guessed that Sennott is some form of Christian, based on the cross she’s wearing in the photo above.) In the same article, Sennott herself said, “I grew up Catholic and very religious.” She has also tweeted about being Catholic on a couple occasions, including this one from 2020:
According to EthniCelebs.com, which as always, we should always take with a grain of salt, Sennott is Italian on her mother Donna’s side. Meanwhile, her father Jack’s side is Irish.
Verdict: No, Rachel Sennott is not Jewish.
