Short answer: No. Emma Thompson was born in London on 15 April 1959 to Scottish actress Phyllida Law and English actor Eric Thompson, and no reputable source documents Jewish parentage or a conversion. Her maternal line is Scottish with a documented Presbyterian clergy connection, and Thompson has described herself on the record as an atheist.
What the record actually shows
- Born 15 April 1959 in London. Her mother was the Scottish actress Phyllida Law and her father was the English actor and writer Eric Thompson, who created and narrated the English version of The Magic Roundabout. She grew up in West Hampstead, attended Camden School for Girls, and went up to Newnham College, Cambridge in 1977, where she joined Footlights alongside Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. (Wikipedia)
- The maternal line is Scottish and Presbyterian. Phyllida Law was born 6 July 1932 in Glasgow, the daughter of Meg Law and William Law, a journalist at the Glasgow Herald. Her own maternal grandmother is described as a fierce Presbyterian who was married to a Presbyterian minister. No Jewish ancestry appears anywhere in the record of that line. (Wikipedia)
- The paternal line is English. Eric Norman Thompson was born 9 November 1929 in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, and raised in Rudgwick, Sussex. His father, George Henry Thompson, was a hotel waiter, and his mother was Annie Jackson. He trained at the Old Vic school, joined the Old Vic company in 1952, married Phyllida Law in 1957, and died on 30 November 1982 at the age of 53. No Jewish ancestry is documented. (Wikipedia)
- She has called herself an atheist. In an interview published on 31 August 2018 while promoting The Children Act, Thompson said: "I am an atheist myself, but I believe in spiritual life being important… and the reason that I am an atheist in so far as the world religions that we have, is because I have seen them oppress so many women for so long." She added: "So, to me, religion is the history of the oppression of women." (Philippine Daily Inquirer)
- The faith she describes rejecting is Christianity, not Judaism. In an interview published on 9 January 2014, she told The Advocate that her gay uncle and two gay godfathers, remarkable men who partly raised her, made her question moral systems young: "They were the reason I rejected Christianity outright, because it said that homosexuality wasn't allowed. I thought, That's ridiculous! It's perfectly normal, so what do you mean it isn't allowed?" (The Advocate)
- Jewish outlets that cover her do not describe her as Jewish. Coverage in the Jewish Chronicle, the Times of Israel and The Algemeiner of her 2012 letter about Israel's national theatre identifies some other signatories as Jewish and never applies that description to Thompson. Stephen M. Flatow's open letter to her in The Algemeiner, published 4 February 2014, criticizes her position without discussing her background at all. (Jewish Chronicle, The Algemeiner)
- Recent record. She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to drama, announced 8 June 2018 in the Queen's Birthday Honours (WRAL). She starred as private investigator Zoë Boehm in Apple TV+'s Down Cemetery Road, which premiered 29 October 2025 (Apple). Her mother, Phyllida Law, died at home on 27 July 2026 at the age of 94, her manager Jacky Leggo confirming to the BBC that "Phyllida Law died supremely peacefully at home, surrounded by all of her family, on Monday 27th July." (Forbes)
Why people ask
Part of the question is likely not about her at all. A similarly named person draws some of it, the film producer Emma Thomas: the film producer born 9 December 1971 in London, wife and producing partner of Christopher Nolan, co-founder of Syncopy, and winner of the Best Picture Oscar for Oppenheimer (2023). Her father worked in the UK Civil Service, she spent part of her childhood in the Middle East, she studied ancient history at UCL, and she was made a DBE in 2024. No reputable source documents Jewish ancestry or religion for Emma Thomas either, and her record contains no mention of religion at all. (Wikipedia)
The rest comes from association rather than evidence. Thompson played the Angel in Mike Nichols's HBO adaptation of Tony Kushner's Angels in America, which premiered 7 to 14 December 2003, opposite Al Pacino as Roy Cohn and Meryl Streep as Ethel Rosenberg (Wikipedia). Starring inside one of the most explicitly Jewish works in modern American theatre reliably produces this question. Her sustained pro-Palestinian record also keeps her name in Jewish-outlet coverage, which pushes her further up "is X Jewish" search behavior. Neither a role nor a political record is evidence of heritage, and in her case the documented family record points the other way.
Emma Thompson and Israel
In late March 2012 Thompson was one of 37 British arts figures, per the Jewish Chronicle,, alongside Mark Rylance, Mike Leigh, Miriam Margolyes, Jonathan Miller and David Aukin, who signed a letter published in The Guardian asking Shakespeare's Globe to withdraw its invitation to Habima, Israel's national theatre, ahead of its Merchant of Venice performance at the Globe to Globe festival that May. The letter said Habima "has a shameful record of involvement with illegal Israeli settlements in Occupied Palestinian Territory" and asked the Globe to withdraw the invitation "so the festival is not complicit with human rights violations and the illegal colonisation of occupied land" (The Guardian). The Globe declined to withdraw it. In March 2025 she was among the named signatories, with Joaquin Phoenix, Sandra Oh, Mark Ruffalo, Jonathan Glazer and Olivia Colman, of a letter circulated on 27 to 28 March that read: "We stand in condemnation of the brutal assault and unlawful detention of Oscar-winning Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal by settlers and Israeli forces in the West Bank." Full details in our companion piece Does Emma Thompson Support Israel?.
The bottom line
Emma Thompson is not Jewish. Both documented parental lines are Scottish and English, with a Presbyterian minister on the maternal side, and she has described herself since at least 2014 as someone who rejected Christianity and, in 2018, as an atheist. The recurring question comes from a name collision with producer Emma Thomas, from her role in Angels in America, and from how often her Israel positions put her name in Jewish publications.
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Related
Does Emma Thompson Support Israel? · /blogs/support/is-anderson-cooper-jewish · /blogs/support/is-bad-bunny-jewish
Last updated August 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.
