mendelssohn not jewish except by nazi definition mendelssohn may have had jewish antecedents but he was born into baptized and brought up in a lutheran family he later became a roman catholic at no stage in his life was he jewish nor did he ever identify himself as jewish please see the discussion pages and don't revert my edits he was defined as jewish by the nazi party because they made the innovation of treating jews as a race not a religious community up until the early th century german jews were regarded correctly as germans for wikipaedia to succumb to a racial or genetic definition of jewishness is highly contentious please read the discussion page very carefully and make up your mind but for the time being leave the categories out