Prominent Jews Who Married Converts

David Brooks (b. 1961) married Jane Hughes in 1986. She converted to Judaism, took the Hebrew name Sarah, and ended up more Orthodox than him before they divorced in 2013. Brooks then married Anne Snyder, a Christian, and has since drifted toward Christianity.
Yoram Hazony (b. 1964) met Julie Fulton at Princeton in the early 1980s. She came from a non-Jewish family in western Pennsylvania, underwent an Orthodox conversion, took the Hebrew name Yael, and moved with him to Israel. They have nine children.
Dennis Prager (b. 1948) married three times. His first wife, Janice Adelstein, was born Jewish, a nurse he met at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute. His second wife, Francine Stone, came from a Lutheran family in Kansas. She converted under Orthodox auspices in 1987 with her daughter Anya, then married Prager in 1988. They divorced in 2005. His third wife, Susan Reed, married him in 2008 after doing a Conservative conversion.
Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) married Robyn Trethewey (b. 1952) in 1974. She was Australian, converted to Judaism, and Charles described her as “more Jewish than I am.” They co-founded Pro Musica Hebraica to revive forgotten Jewish classical music.
Rahm Emanuel (b. 1959) married Amy Merritt Rule (b. 1957) in 1994. She grew up Episcopalian in the Cleveland suburbs and converted before the wedding. The family belongs to Anshe Sholom B’nai Israel, a Modern Orthodox congregation in Chicago. David Axelrod (b. 1955) signed the ketubah.
David Mamet (b. 1947) married Rebecca Pidgeon (b. 1963) in 1991. She grew up in a non-religious Christian home in Edinburgh, Scotland, and converted to Judaism. She helped pull Mamet back into Jewish practice. They study with Rabbi Mordecai Finley at Ohr HaTorah in Los Angeles.
Bari Weiss (b. 1984) married Nellie Bowles (b. 1987) in 2020. Bowles grew up Greek Orthodox in San Francisco and converted to Judaism after they started dating, chronicling the process on her “Chosen by Choice” Substack.
Jonah Goldberg (b. 1969) married Jessica Gavora (b. 1963) in 2001 in a Jewish ceremony. She came from a non-Jewish family in Fairbanks, Alaska. Goldberg’s own status is complicated, since his mother Lucianne Goldberg (1935–2022) was Episcopalian, so by Orthodox law he is not Jewish.
For contrast, the men in the same orbit who married Jewish-born women: Ben Shapiro (b. 1984) married Mor Toledano (b. 1988), Israeli of Moroccan Jewish parentage. William Kristol (b. 1952) married Susan Scheinberg, Jewish by birth. Joseph Telushkin (b. 1948) married Dvorah Menashe, born Jewish.
The pattern in the confirmed cases: high-profile, intellectually serious, mostly center-right or politically heterodox American Jewish men marrying intelligent professional women from Protestant backgrounds, who then take Judaism. Hazony’s Yael is the most observant example. Krauthammer said Robyn was more Jewish than he was. Brooks said Sarah pulled him back toward observance until she became more Orthodox than he was.
One of my favorite jokes is listed in Joseph Telushkin’s book on Jewish humor. Before a son goes to college, the father tells him not to marry a shiksa. The son departs, meets a nice non-Jewish woman, and gets her to convert to Judaism before marrying her. One Saturday morning, the father comes over to enlist the son in the work of the family business. “I’m sorry, abba” says the son, “but we keep Shabbos.” The father responds, “I told you not to marry a shiksa!”