Noah Kahan Ethnicity: Jewish Father, Christian Mother, and Ashkenazi Roots
Noah Kahan’s ethnicity is mixed: his father is Jewish (Ashkenazi) and his mother is Christian of German, Irish, Welsh, and English descent. Born January 1, 1997, in Strafford, Vermont, the folk-pop singer-songwriter behind Stick Season has said that his Jewish roots play a large part in his identity. His paternal grandparents came from Jewish families in England, with deeper ancestry in Russia, Latvia, and Ukraine.
Noah Kahan Quick Facts
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Noah Berkenkamp Kahan |
| Date of Birth | January 1, 1997 |
| Place of Birth | Strafford, Vermont, USA |
| Nationality | American |
| Ethnicity | Ashkenazi Jewish (paternal); German, Irish, Welsh, English (maternal) |
| Known For | Singer-songwriter; Stick Season (2022) |
Who Is Noah Kahan?
Noah Kahan is an American singer-songwriter who rose from posting songs on SoundCloud as a Vermont teenager to becoming one of the defining folk-pop voices of his generation. Born on New Year’s Day 1997 and raised on a 133-acre tree farm in Strafford, Vermont, Kahan began writing songs at age eight and taught himself guitar with help from his father. After signing with Republic Records in 2017, he released his debut album Busyhead (2019) and the follow-up I Was / I Am (2021), but it was his third album, Stick Season (2022) — written during the pandemic after he returned home to Vermont — that made him a mainstream star.
Stick Season turned Kahan into a phenomenon: the title track became a global hit, the album earned him a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist in 2023, and his brutally honest songwriting about mental health, small-town longing, and homesickness built him a devoted fanbase known as “Busyheads.” He has headlined arenas and stadiums, collaborated with artists like Post Malone, Hozier, and Kacey Musgraves, and become known for his self-deprecating humor and openness about anxiety and depression. In his personal life, he has been in a long-term relationship with New England photographer Brenna Nolan, whom he married in 2025 according to reports.
What Is Noah Kahan’s Ethnicity?
Noah Kahan comes from a mixed religious and ethnic background. His father, Josh Kahan, is Jewish, and Kahan has stated publicly that his Jewish roots play a large part in his identity. His mother, Lauri Berkenkamp — an author of parenting guides — is Christian, of predominantly German descent with Irish, Welsh, and English ancestry as well.
On his father’s side, the Jewish lineage is well documented and distinctly Ashkenazi. His paternal grandfather, Richard Solomon Kahan, was born in London to a Jewish family; his great-grandfather Joseph Kahan was born in Sebezh, Russia, to parents from Latvia; and his great-grandmother Xenia Kirschner was born in Ventspils, Latvia. His paternal grandmother, Valerie Juliet Bagrit, was also born in London to a Jewish family — her father, Leon Bagrit, was born in Ukraine and became a noted British industrialist. On his mother’s side, the Berkenkamp line is German (his maternal grandfather John Berkenkamp was born in Washington to German parents), while the Murphy and Morgan lines bring Irish, German, Welsh, and English roots from Ohio and beyond.
Noah Kahan’s Parents and Family Background
Kahan is the third of four children born to Josh Kahan and Lauri Berkenkamp. His father, an information technologist born in Massachusetts, taught him to play guitar and introduced him to the music that would shape his taste — Paul Simon, Cat Stevens, and the acoustic folk tradition. His mother, born in Pennsylvania, wrote parenting guides for a living and taught him to write, nurturing the literary sensibility that distinguishes his lyrics.
The family lived on a 133-acre tree farm in rural Strafford, Vermont, an upbringing that became the emotional and geographic center of Kahan’s songwriting. Though the household blended Jewish and Christian traditions, Kahan has emphasized the importance of his Jewish identity in interviews. He attended Hanover High School across the river in New Hampshire, spent a year in Costa Rica as a teenager (becoming fluent in Spanish), and deferred admission to Tulane University at 17 to pursue a record deal — a gamble his family supported. His siblings include sisters and a brother, and the close-knit, slightly chaotic energy of a four-kid household in the woods of New England echoes through songs like “New Perspective” and “Growing Sideways.”
Readers interested in artists shaped by blended family traditions may enjoy the family background of Matt Danzeisen and the story of Mary Joan Schutz.
Noah Kahan’s Career and the Vermont Sound
Kahan’s career is inseparable from his sense of place — and, by extension, from the family roots that planted him there. After his early pop-leaning work, the pandemic homecoming that produced Stick Season saw him embrace the folk sound of his Vermont youth: banjo, mandolin, and acoustic guitar wrapped around lyrics about seasonal depression, leaving home, and the strange gravity of small towns. The album’s success — including a record-breaking run on streaming charts — proved that intensely personal, regionally rooted songwriting could conquer the global mainstream.
He has been candid that his Jewish upbringing informs his worldview and even his humor, and he has participated in Jewish cultural conversations in the music world. His advocacy for mental health — including partnerships supporting therapy access — reflects values he traces to his family. In 2024, his album Stick Season (Forever) and a historic stadium tour cemented his status, but he remains, by his own description, the anxious kid from the tree farm who got lucky. His story is a reminder that heritage isn’t only about geography — it’s about the traditions, faiths, and family mythologies that shape an artist’s voice.
Fans of folk and indie songwriters with rich cultural backgrounds may also like our profile of Filipino-British artist Beabadoobee’s ethnicity and heritage.
Noah Kahan’s Jewish Identity and How It Shapes His Art
Kahan has been unusually forthright about the role his Jewish identity plays in his life. In interviews, he has said that his Jewish roots are a large part of who he is — not merely a genealogical footnote but a living framework for how he sees the world. That perspective surfaces in his songwriting’s moral seriousness, its wrestling with guilt, responsibility, and repair, and in the self-deprecating humor that fans recognize as culturally familiar. As documented in his Wikipedia biography, his father’s Jewish background and his mother’s Christian upbringing gave him a front-row seat to interfaith family life in rural New England.
The specifics of his paternal line read like a map of the Ashkenazi diaspora: a great-grandfather born in Sebezh, Russia, to Latvian parents; a great-grandmother from Ventspils, Latvia; grandparents born in London to Jewish families; a great-grandfather, Leon Bagrit, born in Ukraine who became a prominent British industrialist. This is the classic trajectory of Eastern European Jewry in the 20th century — from the Pale of Settlement to London to America — and Kahan carries it alongside the equally American story of his mother’s German, Irish, Welsh, and English ancestors who farmed and built lives in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Washington.
Vermont, Family, and the Making of a Songwriter
It is impossible to separate Kahan’s art from the 133-acre tree farm where he grew up, and that land is itself a product of his family’s choices. His parents’ decision to raise four kids in rural Strafford — his father working in technology, his mother writing parenting guides — created the insulated, slightly feral childhood that Stick Season mythologizes. Songs about seasonal depression, about the gravitational pull of home, about watching friends leave and stay, all flow from a young man whose roots run deep in one specific patch of Vermont soil.
That rootedness coexists with wanderlust: the Costa Rica year that made him fluent in Spanish, the deferral of Tulane, the years bouncing between New York and Los Angeles chasing a career. Through it all, family remained the anchor — the parents who supported the Tulane gamble, the siblings who populate his stories, and now a marriage to photographer Brenna Nolan that has given his recent work a new emotional register. For the latest on his music and touring, fans can visit his official website. Kahan’s heritage — Jewish and Christian, immigrant and deeply American, Old World and New England — is ultimately the story of his songs: many threads, one voice.
Frequently Asked Questions About Noah Kahan’s Ethnicity
Is Noah Kahan Jewish?
Partially. Noah Kahan’s father is Jewish (Ashkenazi), and Kahan has said his Jewish roots play a large part in his identity. His mother is Christian.
What is Noah Kahan’s ethnicity?
He is of mixed ethnicity: Ashkenazi Jewish on his father’s side, and German, Irish, Welsh, and English on his mother’s side.
Where are Noah Kahan’s grandparents from?
His paternal grandparents were born in London to Jewish families, with great-grandparents from Russia, Latvia, and Ukraine. His maternal grandparents were born in the United States (Washington and Ohio) to German, Irish, and English-descended families.
Where was Noah Kahan born and raised?
He was born January 1, 1997, in Strafford, Vermont, and grew up on his family’s 133-acre tree farm there, attending high school in Hanover, New Hampshire.
Who are Noah Kahan’s parents?
His father is Josh Kahan, who taught him guitar, and his mother is Lauri Berkenkamp, an author of parenting guides. He is the third of four children.
She holds advanced qualifications in Sociology, Anthropology, and Ethnic Studies, fields that focus on human cultures, traditions, migration patterns, and identity development across the world. Her expertise allows her to break down complex cultural topics into easy-to-understand articles that readers genuinely enjoy.
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