Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Bieber’s Jewish Backer

When the Justin Bieber documentary “Never Say Never” hit last year, the Forward chatted with the superstar’s manager and “father figure,” Scooter Braun, about his own background — Holocaust-survivor grandparents, rough childhood in Greenwich, Conn., Hebrew name.

Braun focuses a bit less on his Semitic side in a recent New Yorker article, which offers an in-depth profile of the former Atlanta party promoter who calls himself “a camp counselor for pop stars.”

The 31-year-old entertainment mogul does reveal a childhood infatuation with Superman sparked by the character’s Jewish roots. “I liked everything he stood for,” Braun said, telling the magazine he liked that Superman had been created by two Jewish men, which made him “the Jewish superhero.”

Braun also revealed that he’s studied the careers of “influential behind-the-scenes guys,” like Jewish Hollywood powerhouse David Geffen, who “moved from the William Morris mailroom to the music business and eventually co-founded DreamWorks.”

“David Geffen was a Bruce Wayne to me,” Braun said. “He was extraordinary, but at the same time his talents were something that I could dream of and could fathom.”

When Braun met David Geffen, at a party a couple of years ago, according to the New Yorker, he said Geffen shared advice: “Get out of the music business.” So Braun “has been converting his twelve-person company, SB Projects, into a many-faceted organization.”

The company now boasts film and TV divisions, a publishing arm, and a technology-investment unit, in addition to a music label and management company.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.