Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Amy Schumer On Learning Of Jewish Ancestors: ‘This Will Change Me’

(JTA) — Amy Schumer teared up while learning details about her relatives’ journey from Eastern Europe to the United States on the PBS series “Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr.”

Seeing an immigration document with the names of her great-grandmother and her parents, who left what is now Ukraine in 1912, brought tears to the Jewish comedian’s eyes on Tuesday night’s episode of the series.

Gates, a Harvard historian and the show’s host, also showed Schumer a photo of the grave of her great-great grandfather, who died within a year of coming to the country. Schumer’s great-great grandfather is buried at the United Hebrew Cemetery in Staten Island.

“I’m excited to find out about that town and think about them more,” Schumer told Gates of the town where her relatives came from. “And I know I’ll go see this grave. I think this will change me.”

Schumer also learned that her eight-great maternal grandfather and his two siblings were captured by Native Americans in Massachusetts and taken as prisoners to Canada. While one sister was ransomed, the two brothers were given the choice to return a few years later. Both chose to remain with their captors. Schumer’s mother converted to Judaism before marrying her father, according to Vogue.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.