It isn’t always clear which religion celebrities practice, or if they’re religious at all. What do we know about Seth Rogen’s religious background and whether or not he practices religion today?
Seth Rogen is Jewish. Both his parents are Jewish, having met in Israel, and Seth attended both a Jewish elementary school and summer camps. His wedding to Lauren Miller was in the Jewish style, though his beliefs are seemingly non-religious in general.
For more on Seth Rogen’s religious upbringing and his status as a significant Jewish public figure.
Background
Seth Rogen was born in 1982 in Vancouver, British Columbia. His parents, both practicing Jews, met on a kibbutz in Israel and Rogen has described them as “radical Jewish socialists”.
His father, Mark, worked for a number of non-profit organizations but was also an assistant director of the Workmen’s Circle, a Jewish fraternal group that promotes social action in the community.
As such, Seth was raised Jewish and given appropriate education, attending the Vancouver Talmud Torah elementary school, which encourages strong academic work whilst also promoting a sense of belonging and pride in being Jewish.
As a teenager, Rogen attended Point Grey Secondary School, a non-religious school. His best friend, Evan Goldberg, is also Jewish and the pair wrote the first draft of “Superbad” together during their school years, heavily inspired by their experiences at Point Grey.
Today, it isn’t clear how religious Rogen is, though he still strongly considers himself Jewish and embraces the perception of him as one of the biggest Jewish stars in Hollywood.
In an interview with the Times of Israel, Rogen mentioned that he’s not an observant person or particularly religious. He also says that his Jewishness has always been a big part of his life and that he thinks that you don’t necessarily have to believe in Judaism as a religion but can still be a Jewish person.
In this sense, it’s probably fair to say that Rogen considers himself culturally Jewish, rather than religiously Jewish.
Rogen Today
Rogen is set to star in “An American Pickle” as a Jewish immigrant, due to release on HBO Max in August 2020. Rogen stars as “Herschel Greenbaum”, a factory worker who falls into a vat of pickles and is preserved for more than a century, waking up in modern-day Brooklyn.
For the part, Rogen tried to learn as much Yiddish as possible, putting the language into practice when he attended a gathering of the Workmen’s Circle.
The making of “An American Pickle” was surrounded by tragedy, as much of the location filming occurred very near the Tree of Life, or L’Simcha Congregation, a synagogue in Pittsburgh. The synagogue was the site of the October 27 2018 mass shooting that took the lives of 11 people, motivated by antisemitism.
Rogen has talked about the traumatic experience of being in the city at the time the shooting occurred but says that he also feels a sense of pride that he and the rest of the crew were banding together to create such a heavily Jewish themed movie.
He sees it as expressing defiance against an act that deliberately targeted his people. He believes that, rather than shrinking away in such times, it’s important to stand tall and refuse to let terrorism succeed.
Rogen’s wedding to writer and longtime life partner Lauren Miller in 2011 was a Jewish ceremony, in the hills of California.
A female Rabbi wed the pair, with the ceremony attended by many of Rogen’s coworkers and friends such as Adam Sandler, Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd and Judd Apatow in attendance. The wedding was apparently a very lighthearted gathering, as you can imagine with so much comedic talent in one place.
While Rogen’s statements in the press suggest that he is nonreligious, there seems little doubt that he is Jewish.