One of the hottest new shows this season is “The Pitt,” a medical drama which follows the team at the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital over the course of one 15-hour shift and stars Noah Wyle. If this is all sounding a bit familiar, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that “The Pitt” comes from some of the team behind “ER.” It isn’t a reboot of the long-running and beloved show, however. Wyle isn’t playing John Carter, the doctor so many viewers saw from medical student to resident to attending physician. This time around, he plays Dr. Michael Robinavitch, or Robby, as he’s known, a working-class Jewish doctor.
But wait… is Noah Wyle Jewish? It’s time to find out.
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 Noah Wyle identify as culturally or religiously Jewish? And/or, does Noah Wyle have Jewish ancestry? If the answer to either of those questions is a resounding yes, he’s a member of the tribe!
Let’s begin with whether or not Noah Wyle has Jewish ancestry. The answer is yes! And it actually has a fun tie-in to his current show, “The Pitt.”
“Noah, where’s your family from?,” executive producer John Wells asked Wyle (per Wyle) during the development process. “‘They’re Russian Jewish,'” Wyle says he replied. “And [Wells] said, ‘Well, what’s a name? What can we play with there? Would you want to play in that blood memory?'” And thus the character of Dr. Robinavitch was born. For Noah’s part, his Russian Jewish lineage comes from his father’s family. Meanwhile, his mother’s family is Episcopalian.
Which brings us to our next question: Does Noah Wyle identify as culturally or religiously Jewish? As Lior Zaltzman wrote for Kveller, “Faith didn’t play a particularly large part in his upbringing, but both his parents’ religious and cultural backgrounds were a part of his experience growing up, mostly through the holidays.” But, as Noah has said in his own words, “There were certain tenets of both faiths that my parents thought were very important to instill in us. It was like a Chinese menu — one from Column A, one from Column B.” And, in 2013, Noah said that his children occasionally attended a Jewish Sunday School. So, it seems likely that Wyle identifies as at least culturally Jewish.
Verdict: Yes, Noah Wyle is Jewish.
