Navigate to News section

Bruce Lee Was Jewish!

Fine, only part-Jewish. Still: Bruce Lee!

by
Liel Leibovitz
June 01, 2018
Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Madame Tussauds
Madame Tussauds New York welcomes Bruce Lee's wax figure for a limited time on August 13, 2014 in New York City.Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Madame Tussauds
Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Madame Tussauds
Madame Tussauds New York welcomes Bruce Lee's wax figure for a limited time on August 13, 2014 in New York City.Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Madame Tussauds

Matthew Polly’s Bruce Lee: A Life will be released next week by Simon & Schuster. Polly’s meticulously reported and beautifully written biography of the martial-arts master contains many deep pleasures and a few big surprises, none more thrilling than this: Bruce Lee was Jewish.

Well, sort of.

While you wait for your copy of the book to arrive and shed light on Lee’s ancestry—he himself had no clue about his Jewish heritage—here, in an exclusive first look for Tablet, is a video unlocking the mystery. Enter the Jewish Dragon:

Liel Leibovitz is editor-at-large for Tablet Magazine and a host of its weekly culture podcast Unorthodox and daily Talmud podcast Take One. He is the editor of Zionism: The Tablet Guide.