Short answer: No. Costco is a widely held public company (Nasdaq: COST) with no controlling family, owner, or religious group behind it. The question usually traces back to one man, co-founder Jeffrey Hart Brotman, who was born to a Jewish family in Tacoma, Washington, while his fellow co-founder Jim Sinegal was raised Catholic in Pittsburgh.
What the record actually shows
- Born September 27, 1942, in Tacoma, Washington. Jeff Brotman was born into a Jewish family, the son of Bernie and Pearl Brotman, who owned a clothing store. He died August 1, 2017, in Medina, Washington, at 74. (Wikipedia, University of Washington Magazine)
- Romanian Jewish roots by way of Canada. JTA described him as the grandson of Romanian Jewish immigrants, with the family route running through Saskatchewan before his parents moved to the United States. (JTA, The Times of Israel)
- Raised at a Reform synagogue. Brotman grew up at Temple Beth Israel in Tacoma, a Reform congregation, and frequently cited the influence of his childhood rabbi, Richard Rosenthal. Rosenthal joined the congregation in 1956, stayed through the 1960 merger that created Temple Beth El, and served until his retirement in 1997. (The Forward, Temple Beth El history)
- He credited Jewish upbringing for his values. In an undated statement published by the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle and quoted in his obituaries, Brotman named "Helping the disadvantaged, encouraging diversity, fostering a community that treats its people well" as values he learned from his parents and in Sunday school, alongside Rabbi Rosenthal and a grandfather who helped with the movement to plant trees in Israel. Of his childhood congregation he said, "The congregation launched me into being a responsible adult." (The Times of Israel)
- 2014: nearly $1 million to Temple Beth El. Brotman gave close to $1 million to the Tacoma congregation formed by the merger of his childhood synagogue with another local temple, to build a preschool and day care. He was also a supporter of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. (JTA, Jewish Virtual Library)
- June 2, 2010: he sat for a Jewish oral history. Brotman was interviewed for the Washington State Jewish Archives at University of Washington Libraries Special Collections, discussing his childhood and the Jewish communities of Tacoma and Seattle, including Rabbi Rosenthal. (Archives West)
- The other co-founder was raised Catholic. James D. Sinegal, born January 1, 1936, in Pittsburgh to a Catholic working-class family, attended St. Lawrence O'Toole primary school and Central Catholic High School. He was president and CEO from 1983 until 2011, stepping down in January 2012, and left the board in January 2018. (Wikipedia)
Why people ask
The single biggest driver is August 2017. When Brotman died, Costco announced the death of its co-founder and chairman in a press release on August 1, 2017, and the Jewish press covered it as Jewish news. JTA, The Forward, The Times of Israel, Jewish Journal, Cleveland Jewish News and Jewish Ledger all ran obituaries, with Cleveland Jewish News headlining him as the Jewish Costco founder. Readers who met that coverage understandably carried the label from the man to the company.
The second driver is the shelves. Costco carries a large kosher assortment, including Empire and Solomon's kosher meat, glatt kosher deli, kosher-for-Passover items, and many Kirkland Signature products bearing an OU symbol, which leads shoppers to assume Jewish ownership. That inference does not hold. Costco is not owned by any person, family, or community. According to a Motley Fool ownership breakdown current as of December 18, 2025, the largest holders are index-fund managers (Vanguard around 9.5%, BlackRock around 7.83%, State Street around 4.08%), with all insiders including executives and directors holding roughly 0.20% of shares. After Brotman's death, Hamilton E. "Tony" James, a director since August 1988 and lead independent director since 2005, was elected non-executive chairman in August 2017 and still holds the role, as reported by The Seattle Times and confirmed in Costco proxy materials. The CEO since January 2024 is Ron Vachris, who started at the company as a forklift driver. Nothing about his religion is documented, and we will not speculate. No member of the Brotman family holds an executive or board role at Costco today.
Costco and Israel
Costco has no operations in Israel. Its own third-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings release, for the quarter ended May 10, 2026, lists all 931 warehouses by country, covering the United States and Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico, Japan, the United Kingdom, Korea, Australia, Taiwan, China, Spain, France, Sweden, Iceland and New Zealand, and Israel does not appear. The only documented Israel connection in the record is personal and secondhand: Brotman's tribute to a grandfather who helped with the movement to plant trees in Israel. We could not locate any corporate statement from Costco on Israel, and the company is not a named BDS National Committee consumer-boycott target. Full details in our companion piece Does Costco Support Israel?.
The bottom line
Costco itself is not Jewish and not Jewish-owned. It is a public corporation whose shares sit mostly with index funds, built by two men from different backgrounds, one Jewish and one raised Catholic. Jeff Brotman personally was Jewish by every documented measure, from his parents Bernie and Pearl to his Reform upbringing in Tacoma to a lifetime of giving to Jewish institutions.
Celebrate your own story
Brotman traced his ethics straight back to a small congregation in Tacoma, which is a good reminder that identity is something you carry, not something a corporation confers. If you are marking your own connection, our Star of David jewelry collection was made for exactly that.
Related
Does Costco Support Israel? · Is Larry Page Jewish? · Is Ben Affleck Jewish?
Last updated August 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.
