How Jewish is Scooter Braun?

Background and career

Braun has a net worth of $1.1 billion making him one of the richest managers and executives in the US entertainment industry. 

His income comes from his role as CEO of HYBE America, the South Korean entertainment company behind K-pop band BTS. He previously sold Ithaca Holdings, the parent company of his first venture SB Projects, to HYBE in 2021 for more than $1 billion. 

He also has a number of successful investments in companies including Uber, Spotify, Dropbox, Pinterest and Waze.

However, in his earlier days, Braun was a successful party planner planning events for big stars including Ludacris and Eminem. After dropping out of university at 19, American record executive Jermaine Dupri offered him a job at So So Def Recordings who managed TLC and Usher.

Despite his wealth, Braun said that growing up he never spoke to his Conservative Jewish parents about money. 

According to a 2020 interview with Glamour magazine, he said his dad once told him: “If anyone asks if you’re rich, say yes — you’re rich with love and have everything you’ll ever need.”

Parents

Scooter was born Scott Samuel Braun, in New York City in 1981 to Hungarian parents Ervin and Susan, Conservative Jews. 

Ervin and Susan lived in Hungary until 1956 before immigrating to the United States. 

His dad had two jobs as a dentist and high-school basketball coach whilst his mum was an orthodontist.

After the couple married, they settled in Cos Cob in Connecticut.

Braun has one sister and three brothers, two of which his parents adopted from Mozambique.

Grandparents

Braun’s grandparents are both Holocaust survivors which played a big part in his life. His grandfather survived the Dachau concentration camp and his grandmother lived through Auschwitz. 

Speaking to Du Jour in 2020, Braun said his grandmother “worked in a sweatshop”. He also revealed in a 2016 interview with Reuters that his grandfather died when he was just 14, his grandmother is now in her 90s. 

He said: “The fact that my grandparents were Holocaust survivors has played a significant role in my life.  My grandmother is 87 now, and was only 15 when she was in Auschwitz. 

“My grandfather died when I was 14, and he was in Bergen-Belsen and Dachau. So be grateful for your life, because nothing is guaranteed. Everything could literally be taken away from you tomorrow.”

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In 2014, Braun posted a graphic on Instagram commemorating his grandparents on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The graphic showed a yellow star with the headline: “We Remember the Six Million Jews Who Died In The Holocaust.”

Braun captioned the picture: “I’m the grandson of survivors of the camps. We will never forget. #holocaustrembranceday. Proud of who I am and where I come from.”

His grandmother has also watched his successful career, Braun says, adding: “I know she will be proud when she sees my name on the screen.”

His childhood

Despite being the birthname of Scott, Braun was given the name Scooter at a first-grade birthday party by an entertainer and it stuck. 

He said: “I hated it. Then my brother found out that I hated it and kept calling me it." 

Braun's brother Adam posted a throwback picture in 2020 of the two siblings and their cousins Danny and Sam growing up together.

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Braun went on to attend Greenwich High School in Greenwich, Connecticut where he demonstrated a passion for music and basketball. 

His classmates crowned him the homecoming prince and he was the first person to be class president three years in a row. However, Braun was subject to antisemitism after someone carved a swastika into his car when he was elected class president.

He spent summers at Camp Ramah including a six-week trip to Israel. 

After graduating from Greenwich, Braun pursued higher education at Emory University in Atlanta. However, he dropped out.

How important is Braun’s Jewishness to him and on others?

Jewish life and Jewish values seem to be very important to Scooter and it’s not something that he keeps in the background.

Justin Bieber developed a close relationship with Braun and he is now seen as a Jewish father figure to Bieber. Bieber regularly joins Braun and musical director Dan Kanter in reciting the “Shema” prayer in Hebrew prior to a big concert.

Braun joked in 2014 that he is the pop star’s most beloved Jew after Jesus. Posting on Twitter, he said: “I'm still your favourite jew after JC : ),” in a message addressed to the Boyfriend singer and New York City Pastor Carl Lentz.

However, Justin Bieber’s mother, a Christian, bristled at the idea of her son being represented by a Jewish manager. 

In a 2009 New York Times profile, she said: “I prayed, ‘God, you don’t want this Jewish kid to be Justin’s man, do you?’” 

In 2017, Braun took to Instagram this week to share photos from his trip to Israel with the Canadian pop star, who performed in Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park.

Braun posted pictures of himself praying at the Western Wall, paying his respects at a Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem as well as touring a vineyard in the Golan Heights.

In the caption for a photo he took with Bieber in Israel, Braun wrote, “It’s amazing to be in the holy land but to share it with people you love is a blessing in itself.

“I love this guy right here and I have his back for life and I know he has mine. So proud of you Justin Bieber. Keep going!”