Short answer: No. Tom Holland, the actor behind Spider-Man, is not Jewish. He was raised in a Roman Catholic family in southwest London and attended Catholic schools, including the Jesuit-run Wimbledon College. The question trends anyway, mostly because of the character he plays, the actor who played him before, and a famous historian who shares his name.
What the record actually shows
- 1 June 1996: Thomas Stanley Holland is born in Kingston upon Thames to photographer Nicola (nee Frost) and comedian-author Dominic Holland. His paternal grandmother was Irish, from County Tipperary, and his paternal grandfather was Manx, from the Isle of Man. No Jewish heritage appears anywhere in his documented biography, per his Wikipedia biography.
- Until 2012: Holland is educated at Donhead Preparatory School, an all-male Catholic preparatory school in Wimbledon, and then attends Wimbledon College, a voluntary aided Jesuit comprehensive school, a background Independent Catholic News highlighted when he was cast as Spider-Man.
- His adult beliefs: Holland has not made public statements about his personal faith as an adult. No reputable outlet records him discussing religion in the first person, so his upbringing is documented but his current beliefs are simply private.
- 14 August 2022: Holland announces he is stepping back from Instagram and Twitter, telling followers in a video covered by CBS News: "I find Instagram and Twitter to be overstimulating, to be overwhelming. I get caught up and I spiral when I read things about me online, and ultimately it's very detrimental to my mental state." He used the announcement to promote Stem4, a UK youth mental health charity supported by his family's foundation, The Brothers Trust.
- Jewish causes: Searches of JTA, The Forward, Hey Alma, and the Jewish Chronicle surface no statement, donation, visit, or gesture by Holland toward Jewish causes or Israel. His charity work runs through The Brothers Trust, which supports children's and mental health causes.
- 31 July 2026: Spider-Man: Brand New Day, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton and starring Holland alongside Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal, and Mark Ruffalo, opens in the US after a 27 July premiere at the Dolby Theatre. Per Wikipedia, it has grossed about $2.2 billion worldwide and ranks as the highest-grossing Spider-Man film, the highest-grossing film of 2026, and the fifth-highest-grossing film of all time.
Why people ask
The biggest reason is the character, not the actor. Spider-Man debuted in the summer of 1962, co-created by Stan Lee, a Jewish New Yorker born Stanley Martin Lieber. Peter Parker, a neurotic, guilt-driven science kid from Forest Hills, Queens, has long been read as a coded Jewish character. In the Jewish Chronicle's 60th-anniversary piece on the character, writer Brian Michael Bendis says, "I still think that Peter Parker is a Jewish character," while writer Dan Slott argues against assigning him a definitive religion. Holland's predecessor in the role made the reading explicit: Andrew Garfield, whose father is Jewish, told Time Out London in April 2014 that "Peter Parker is not a simple dude. He ums and ahs about his future because he's neurotic. He's Jewish. It's a defining feature," adding, "I hope Jewish people won't mind the cliché, because my father's Jewish. I have that in me for sure," as reported by JTA. Those heavily covered comments attached a standing "Jewish question" to whoever wears the suit.
The third reason is a pure name collision. A completely different public figure, the British historian Tom Holland (born 1968), co-presenter of the podcast The Rest Is History, writes constantly about religion and is publicly vocal against antisemitism. After the knife attack on two Jewish men in Golders Green, London on 29 April 2026, declared a terrorist incident by Counter Terrorism Policing, as CBS News reported at the time, the Jewish Chronicle listed the historian among public figures rallying around British Jews, quoting him: "It's all too clear that a country in which Jews are attacked on the streets simply because they are Jewish, synagogues need to employ security, & anti-Semitic slogans & images are paraded through city centres or exhibited in art galleries is exactly what we've become." That is the historian, not the actor. The historian is not Jewish either. He was raised Anglican and writes constantly about Christianity, and his writing keeps "Tom Holland" and "Jewish" tangled together in search results.
Tom Holland and Israel
The actor has no documented record on Israel at all, which fits a broader pattern: he has been largely off social media since August 2022 and has made no public statement on Israel or antisemitism from any side. Full details in our companion piece Does Tom Holland Support Israel?.
The bottom line
Tom Holland the actor is not Jewish. He comes from a Catholic family, was schooled at Catholic and Jesuit institutions in southwest London, and keeps his adult beliefs private. The Jewish associations around his name belong to the character he plays, the predecessor who called Peter Parker Jewish, and a historian who happens to share his name.
Celebrate your own story
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Related
Does Tom Holland Support Israel? · Is David Copperfield Jewish? · Is Zendaya Jewish?
Last updated August 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.
