Logan Lerman

by ethnic · April 19, 2010

Lerman in 2013, photo by DFree/Bigstock.com

Birth Name: Logan Wade Lerman

Place of Birth: Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States

Date of Birth: January 19, 1992

Ethnicity: Ashkenazi Jewish

Logan Lerman is an American actor. He has featured in the films The Patriot, What Women Want, The Butterfly Effect, Hoot, The Number 23, 3:10 to Yuma, Meet Bill, My One and Only, Gamer, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, and its sequel; The Three Musketeers (2011), The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stuck in Love, Noah (2014), Fury, Indignation, The Vanishing of Sidney Hall, Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero, Shirley, End of Sentence, and Bullet Train, and on television’s A Painted House, Jack & Bobby, Hunters, and We Were the Lucky Ones. On Jack & Bobby, his character was of half Mexican descent.

Logan is the son of Lisa and Larry Lerman. His parents are both Jewish. Logan was raised in Conservative Judaism, and had a Bar Mitzvah ceremony in a Conservative synagogue. His father is of Polish Jewish and Russian Jewish descent, and his mother is of Polish Jewish, Russian Jewish, and Lithuanian Jewish ancestry. A picture of Logan’s father can be seen here, and a picture of Logan with his mother can be seen here.

Early in his career, Logan often collaborated with his friend Dean Collins, including making short films together.

Logan’s paternal grandfather was Max Lerman (the son of Jacob/Jakob Lerman and Erna Popower). Max was born in 1927 in Berlin, Germany. Jacob was a Polish Jewish emigrant, born in Kolbiel, Poland, the son of Abraham/Abram Lerman and Rachel, possibly Rekla Gurfinkel. He founded the family’s company, Lerman & Son, which now works in orthotics and prosthetics, in 1915. Erna was born in Berlin, Germany, of Polish Jewish descent, and was the daughter of Mordka/Max Popower/Pepower and Sura/Sara Blumberg, who were born in Warsaw. Because of anti-Jewish persecution in Germany, Max Lerman and his family moved to Shanghai, China, where Max was raised. In the late 1940s, after World War II was over, they settled in California.

Logan’s paternal grandmother was Mina Schwartz (born Neja Schwartztuch y Gomer, the daughter of Abraham Schwartztuch and Zisla Gomer). Mina was born in 1933, in Mexico City, Mexico, to Russian Jewish parents. Her family had moved to Mexico at some point after 1927 and before Mina’s birth. They left Mexico for the United States in 1946, settling in California. In the United States, they changed their surname from Schwartztuch to Schwartz.

Logan’s maternal grandfather was Jay/Jake Goldman (the son of Aaron Goldman and Blanche Brum). Jay was born in 1933 in Poland, the son of Polish Jewish parents. Jay, his sister, and his parents, survived the Holocaust, and moved to the U.S. after World War II, in the late 1940s. Aaron’s mother’s maiden name was Gingold. Blanche was born in Dlugosiodlo, the daughter of Jay Brum and Rifra Guzman/Gussman.

Logan’s maternal grandmother was Susan Louise Freeman (the daughter of Lincoln Abraham Freeman and Molly Eva Lazareck). Susan was born in 1940 in Los Angeles, California. Susan’s father, who was born Louis Abraham Freedman, was a Jewish emigrant from Eastern Europe, likely from near Lemberg/Lviv, Ukraine, who had changed his first name to Lincoln and his surname to Freeman, becoming known as Lincoln A. Freeman; he lived in Winnipeg, Canada, before settling in Los Angeles. Louis was the son of Israel Samuel Freedman and Rebecca/Rebecka Lillian/Lilly/Lillie Brodsky. Susan’s mother, Logan’s great-grandmother Molly, was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Molly’s father, Abraham Jacob “Jack” Lazareck, was a Jewish emigrant who was born, c. 1879, in Poland, and moved to England with his family, c. 1886; Jacob later moved to Canada, c. 1901. Molly Eva Lazareck’s mother, Chana-Etta “Emma”/Anna Zelbovitz, who was Logan Lerman’s matrilineal great-great-grandmother, was a Jewish emigrant from Lithuania. Chana-Etta’s family settled in Winnipeg in the early 1900s.

Logan is related, by marriage, to twin singers Evan Lowenstein and Jaron Lowenstein. Logan’s maternal great-grandfather, Louis Abraham Freedman, had a sister named Esther Freedman. Esther’s husband, Joseph Winestock, had a sister named Adella Winestock. Adella was one of Evan and Jaron Lowenstein’s maternal great-grandmothers.

Logan likely shares a recent ancestor with actors Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jake Gyllenhaal (through the Gyllenhaals’ mother, who is Ashkenazi Jewish). Logan’s Zelbovitz ancestors were listed on the same Zelbovitz family site as Jake’s Silbowitz line.