Ezra Klein Family History

Ezra Klein was born on May 9th, 1984 to Abel and Jacqueline Klein in Irvine, California.  He grew up Jewish.  He went to Hebrew school, attended temple with his parents and for a time a Jewish day school.  Ezra has said that his father is culturally Jewish, but is not a believer; while his mother is a seeker.

He attended University High School in Irvine where he was a poor student.  He considered himself “unenthusiastic and rudderless” and thought about dropping out.  But he did continue to college, graduating in 2005 from UCLA although his grades were not that great.

Ezra’s Blogging.  Ezra rose to prominence as a blogger.  He became well known for his in-depth analysis on a range of policy issues.  Hired by The Washington Post in 2009 he managed Wonkblog, a blog that featured his writing on domestic policy.  Then in 2014 he co-founded Vox, a website for explanatory news, and became its editor-in-chief.

New York Times Columnist.  Ezra found a larger audience when he joined the New York Times as a columnist in 2020.

He expanded into podcasting with his Ezra Klein Show there.  Indeed, in these polarized times he is probably the podcaster most favored by the Democrats; as opposed to Joe Rogan on the Republican side.  Ezra has also sought to provide new perspectives on the political scene with his books Why We’re Polarized (published in 2020) and Abundance (published in 2025).

Jews in Brazil

The Klein name in Brazil is to a large extent the result of European Jews who had escaped the Nazi Holocaust and found sanctuary across the Atlantic.  Their principal destination after the war had been America.  But America would only take so many Jews.  The second choice tended to be Brazil.

The most famous of these Klein emigres to Brazil was the Polish-born Samuel Klein.  He had been sent by the Nazis to the Auschwitz concentration camp, but managed to escape.  After the war he was reunited with his brother Solomon and they moved to Munich in Germany.  His father Suk’her, who had also survived, had departed for Brazil and Samuel joined him there in 1952.

Samuel, who started out as a door-to-door peddler, went on to found the Casas Bahia chain of department stores in Brazil, building them up to be the top retailer in the country.  By the 1990’s he was being spoken of as the “Sam Walton of Brazil.”

Ezra’s Family Case.  In Ezra’s family case, the details are scant.  His Klein grandparents did arrive in Brazil, it would seem, in 1944.

According to Ezra, his grandmother had been born into a large Jewish family in a shtetl in Poland.  As the threat of World War Two grew, she was sent to safety – escaping to Tel Aviv while most of her siblings would subsequently perish in Auschwitz.

Very little is known about Ezra’s Klein grandfather.  He disappeared or died during or shortly after the war.  Their son Abel Klein was born in Rio de Janeiro in January 1945.

Ezra’s Father and Mother

Abel Klein.  Ezra’s father Abel Klein was indeed born in Rio de Janeiro and he was raised by his mother there.  He attended Rio’s Universidade Federal. receiving a bachelor’s degree in mathematics.

Then he departed for America for his postgraduate studies.  He went to MIT in Boston where he received his PhD in 1971, specializing in mathematical physics.  He worked for a time at UCLA and Princeton where he focused on quantum field theory within the scope of imathematical physics.

His career at UC Irvine in California began in 1974 and has continued to the present time.  The 80th birthday celebrations for Abel Klein, held at UC Irvine in April 2025, honored his role in shaping careers in mathematical physics, as well as highlighting his mentoring legacy.

His Mother Jacqueline.  Less is known about Ezra’s mother Jacqueline, a late-starting artist.

Born in 1949, she ran a china shop in New York and dreamt of the patterns she could paint on the Limoges boxes and tea sets that she sold. It was not until she moved to Southern California that she began to put paintbrush to porcelain.

At the encouragement of her family, she took a few samples of her hand-painted boxes to a local gift shop.  Soon her work was to be found throughout Orange county and in Los Angeles.  Sadly in later life she is said to have Alzeimers.

Ezra Klein’s Family Tree

• Polish Jews who survrived the Holocaust in Europe and escaped to Brazil.  The husband soon died or disappeared.
• – Abel Klein (b. 1945), born in Rio de Janeiro

• Abel Klein, mathematics professor, departed for America around 1967 and m. Jacqueline Klein, artist (b. 1949) in California in the early 1980’s
• – Ezra Klein (b. 1984)
• – Liliana Klein (b. 1988)