Zoë Kravitz — actress (batman) with roots in the Russian Empire
Zoë Isabella Kravitz was born on 1 December 1988 in Venice, Los Angeles, at the home of her parents, the musician Lenny Kravitz and the actress Lisa Bonet. Both her parents had a Jewish parent and an African American one, and her connection to the Russian Empire runs, at some distance, through her father's father.
Sy Kravitz (1924-2005), an NBC television news producer born in New York, came from a family of Russian and Ukrainian Jews. One of Lenny Kravitz's great-grandfathers came from Kiev, then in the Russian Empire, which makes him Zoë's great-great-grandfather. His name is given in one source as Leonid Kravets; it is not otherwise documented, and neither is the date of emigration. Lenny Kravitz has written of visiting his grandparents, Joe and Jean Kravitz, in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, and of his grandmother teaching him the Russian card game durak.
Her mother's mother, Arlene Litman, was a Jewish schoolteacher; the sources checked do not record where her family came from. Her mother's father, Allen Bonet, was an opera singer, and her father's mother, the actress Roxie Roker, came from an African American and Bahamian family.
Her parents separated when she was two, and she grew up partly with her mother in Topanga Canyon. She later studied at the State University of New York at Purchase. She made her film debut in No Reservations (2007), and her breakthrough came as Angel Salvadore in X-Men: First Class (2011). Franchise roles followed in the Divergent series, Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) and the Fantastic Beasts films, and on television she played Bonnie Carlson in HBO's Big Little Lies (2017-2019), sharing a Screen Actors Guild nomination with the cast, and led the Hulu series High Fidelity (2020).
She played Selina Kyle in Matt Reeves's The Batman (2022), having already voiced Catwoman in The Lego Batman Movie (2017) and Mary Jane Watson in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018). In 2024 she made her debut as a director with the thriller Blink Twice, which she also co-wrote and co-produced. She has also worked as a model and recorded music with her band Lolawolf. She is her parents' only child.
"Her paternal great-grandparents Joe and Jean Kravitz lived in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn; the family descends from Russian and Ukrainian Jews, one ancestor from Kiev. Date of emigration not documented."
Migration storyTracing the roots — Kiev (paternal line; generation not documented)
Her father's father, Sy Kravitz, came from a family of Russian and Ukrainian Jews; one of Lenny Kravitz's great-grandfathers came from Kiev, then in the Russian Empire. The generation that emigrated and its date are not documented.
Father Lenny Kravitz is the son of Sy Kravitz (1924-2005), whose family descended from Russian and Ukrainian Jews, one of Lenny's great-grandfathers coming from Kiev. Mother Lisa Bonet is the daughter of Arlene Litman, a Jewish schoolteacher, and Allen Bonet, an African American opera singer.
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Kiev (paternal line; generation not documented). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.