As a multi-hyphenate YouTube star, actor and professional boxer, Jake Paul is used to balancing several identities. The same is true about his family’s ethnic background.
The Paul family has Welsh, Irish, German, French — and Jewish — ancestry.
Paul, a 27-year-old Ohio native with nearly 21 million YouTube subscribers — plus 27 million more on Instagram and 4.6 million on X — is set to take on all-time boxing great Mike Tyson live on Netflix Friday night in a highly anticipated fight at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
“I think I will knock him out in the fifth or sixth round,” Paul told CNN. “I love Mike, but I have to handle business.”
Tensions seemed to flare before the fight even began — with the two fighters getting into it at their official weigh-in on Thursday.
Before the main event, here’s what to know about Paul’s Jewish background — plus how Tyson got himself in hot water over Israel last year.
Paul is social media’s third-richest content creator, raking in $38 million in 2023, according to Fortune Magazine. His older brother Logan is also a social media influencer and content creator who has dabbled in combat sports.
It was Logan who unwittingly revealed the family’s Jewish past in a 2016 YouTube video filmed at a family gathering — his great-aunt’s funeral.
As Logan Paul introduced his viewers to his mother Pamela, she offered up a fact she said his viewers likely wouldn’t know: “You have a little bit of Jew in you,” she told the elder Paul brother, eliciting surprise from her son.
Paul’s mother explained that “Grammy was a Buxbaum and her dad was a Buxbaum.”
A search of genealogical records appears to explain that Jake and Logan’s great-grandmother, who Pamela refers to as “Grammy,” was Lillian Mae Meredith (Buxbaum), and her father was Isidore “Harry” Buxbaum.
The Buxbaums came to the United States from Germany, settling in Massachusetts. Isidore, who died in 1949, is buried in Moses Mendelsohn Cemetery in West Roxbury, a neighborhood in Boston.
Upon learning that he is part Jewish, part Welsh, part Irish and part German, Logan Paul jokingly responds, “So I’m just an ugly mutt, huh?”
Tyson, who officially retired in 2005 after a decorated career as one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time, has participated in a number of exhibition bouts since his career first ended. He was originally scheduled to face Paul on July 20, but the fight was postponed for medical reasons.
Tyson, who at 58 is 31 years his opponent’s senior, was raised Catholic but later converted to Islam. In November 2023, Tyson was rumored to have donated money to the Israeli Defense Forces after he was seen at a fundraising event sponsored by the Friends of the IDF organization.
Tyson released a statement after his attendance sparked criticism.
“I want to clarify the recent portrayal of an event I attended,” Tyson wrote on Instagram. “Invited for a casual evening out by a friend, I was unaware of the arranged fundraiser and no donations were made by me or on my behalf. As a Muslim and human, I support peace. My prayers have been and continue to be with my brothers and sisters.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
