Short answer: No. Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, known as The Weeknd, was born in Toronto in 1990 to Ethiopian immigrant parents and was raised in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. No reputable source documents Jewish ancestry on either side of his family, and he has never described himself as Jewish.
What the record actually shows
- Born February 16, 1990, in Toronto to Ethiopian immigrant parents, Makkonen Tesfaye and Samrawit Hailu, who separated shortly after his birth (background).
- Raised in Scarborough by his mother and grandmother. Rolling Stone reported in its December 2015 profile that his mother, referred to there as Samra, "emigrated from Ethiopia in the 1980s and settled with her mother in Scarborough, a drab neighbourhood on the east side of Toronto," and that "his grandmother took care of him a lot, taking him to services at their Ethiopian Orthodox church." The same piece notes "His first language was Amharic, not English." (Rolling Stone)
- He has described the church service himself. In that profile he said of it: "It's almost Islamic. There's a lot of bowing." (Rolling Stone)
- April 2020, asked directly about religion. In a Variety interview published that month, he said he was raised "very religious," in the Orthodox Christian tradition, and when asked whether he is religious now answered "I dunno." Those answers are reproduced and attributed to Variety by Premier Christianity.
- 2016: a $50,000 gift to St. Mary Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Toronto, announced during the church's 2016 Orthodox Easter celebration, as Ethiopian community outlets reported at the time, alongside $50,000 to the University of Toronto for Ethiopic Studies (Global Citizen). Coverage of the donation quoted the church's priest, Father Misale Engida, remembering Tesfaye attending as a child.
- On faith more recently, speaking to BET he said "My relationship with God is stronger than ever" and "I find comfort in his presence when I need it most. I talk to him constantly," as reported by Premier Christianity.
- No engagement with Jewish identity or antisemitism on record. He has not spoken publicly about antisemitism, and no Jewish outlet or mainstream publication has reported Jewish heritage in his family.
Why people ask
Three things push the question into search boxes. His birth name is Abel, a Hebrew Bible name, and his catalogue leans hard on religious imagery, from the After Hours track "Faith" to "Baptized in Fear." He is also Ethiopian by descent, and Ethiopia is home to the Beta Israel, the Ethiopian Jewish community, which is a frequent source of confusion. Nothing documented connects his family to Beta Israel.
His first language, Amharic, is classified as a Semitic language, and that label occasionally gets misread as evidence of Jewish ancestry. It is a linguistic classification and nothing more. The other driver is politics: his 2021 posts about Sheikh Jarrah and his later Gaza donations sent people searching for his religion and his position on Israel, which are two different questions.
The Weeknd and Israel
In May 2021, during the Sheikh Jarrah eviction protests, he shared to his Instagram story a protest painting by the Palestinian artist Shirien titled "Free Jerusalem," reading "No More Ethnic Cleansing" and "Palestinians Will Remain," along with a post by law professor Khaled Beydoun and a post by an Israeli artist reading "As a Jewish Israeli I cannot stay silent about Sheikh Jarrah," as Haaretz reported. He added no words of his own. In December 2023 he gave $2.5 million to Gaza civilians through the UN World Food Programme via his XO Humanitarian Fund (Jerusalem Post), and in April 2024 the WFP announced a further $2 million, funding more than 1,500 metric tons of fortified wheat flour and over 18 million loaves of bread for roughly 157,000 people in Gaza for a month (WFP). Full details in our companion piece Does The Weeknd Support Israel?.
The bottom line
The Weeknd is not Jewish. He was raised in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in Toronto, has described that upbringing as "very religious," and donated $50,000 to the church he grew up in. As of August 2026, through the release of Hurry Up Tomorrow and the final legs of the After Hours til Dawn Tour, he has never claimed Jewish identity and no reputable outlet has reported Jewish ancestry.
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Last updated August 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.
