Is Meghan Markle Jewish?
Prince Harry Windsor’s wife Meghan Markle has been put forward as being jewish by a series of widely-read fashion and gossip magazines. (1)
The fact is however that her mother Doria Ragland is black and as far as I can is neither a Hebrew Israelite or has ever claimed to be part of the Lemba tribe from southern Africa, (2) which claim jewish ancestry and for which there is some genetic evidence. (3)
Nor is her father Thomas Markle a member of the tribe. He is in fact Irish and there is no indication as far as I can see that there are any ‘jews in the woodpile’, (4) especially as jews are a very small minority in Ireland and have been throughout its history. (5)
There is also strong evidence that a story of Markle’s conversion to or from – depending on which claim you read – Judaism is pure fantasy. (6)
Jenny Singer’s contention that Markle is jewish is a based off the fact that Markle did a ‘jewish chair dance’ at her wedding to her jewish first husband Trevor Engelson, has changed her first name from Rachel to Meghan (‘a common jewish practice’) and has said that jewish producers at casting calls have mentioned that she ‘looks Sephardic’. (7)
Not exactly a strong ‘positive case’ if one can even call it a case at all…
The explicit statement by Reuters – published by Haaretz among others – that Thomas Markle is jewish is also apparently without foundation. (8)
In the article there is no mention of how Markle’s jewishness was uncovered or even a statement (implied or otherwise) from either Thomas Markle or Meghan Markle that this is the case. It therefore appears to be a claim more or less invented out of thin air by Reuters.
Nor is Meghan Markle’s baptism evidence of her jewishness, because it is far more likely she was just never baptised in the first place. This is also suggested by her need to convert to Judaism to marry her first husband Trevor Engelson, because this necessarily implies that she had been raised in a secular/non-religious household not as a Christian, jew or anything else.
Therefore, based upon the foregoing discussion; the simple fact is that there is no evidence whatsoever that Meghan Markle is jewish.
References
(1) http://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/is-meghan-markle-jewish-the-internet-is-confused/
(2) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3898232/Prince-Harry-s-love-s-Meghan-Markle-s-mother-smiles-laughter-asked-romance-actress-daughter.html
(3) http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/unlike-many-lost-tribes-zimbabwe-clan-has-science-on-its-side-1.428836
(4) http://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/750961/Thomas-Markle-who-is-father-Meghan-Prince-Harry-profile-career-facts-age; http://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/is-meghan-markle-jewish-the-internet-is-confused/
(5) Cf. Louis Hyman, 1972, ‘The Jews of Ireland: From the Earliest Times to the Year 1910’, 1st Edition, Israel Universities Press: Jerusalem; Cormac o Grada, 2016, ‘Jewish Ireland in the Age of Joyce: A Socioeconomic History’, 1st Edition, Princeton University Press: Princeton
(6) http://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/is-meghan-markle-jewish-the-internet-is-confused/
(7) https://forward.com/schmooze/372756/is-meghan-markle-going-to-be-prince-harrys-jewish-princess/
(8) https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/meghan-markle-secretly-baptized-ahead-of-wedding-to-prince-harry-1.5887236