Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway, despite his rather Old Testament-sounding first name, was about as Jewish as a ham sandwich on white bread. Born and raised in Oak Park, Illinois, he was baptized an Episcopalian and remained a lifelong, if often lapsed, Christian. No hidden family menorahs here; his ancestry was solidly Anglo-Saxon.

So why is he even on "Jew or Not Jew"? Well, mostly because he produced a rather sizable body of work that influenced generations of writers. That, and he was married multiple times, which, while not intrinsically Jewish, does have a certain… operatic quality, which some might mistake for kvell-worthiness. He also owned a six-toed cat, which, again, not Jewish, but certainly memorable.

While he might not have brought nachas to any Jewish mothers, he did bring plenty of pulitzer prizes and Nobel Prizes. And for a man who apparently killed more animals than he wrote books, that's something. So while he's definitely not a Jew, we can at least appreciate his contributions to literature, even if we can't claim him as one of our own.