Below is an article titled "Jewish Origin of Jules Verne" (wait... that can't be right!), printed in the New York Times (!!!) on January 15, 1906.
And they say today's media is rumor-mongering! That's right, the New York Times, the paper of record, printed this absurd rumor about Jules Verne over a century ago.
So how did it come about? One theory says that a Polish Jew named Olschewitz told Verne that they might be related because their last names could be translations of each other. Verne laughed it off, but some journalists ran with it.
In any case, Verne wasn't born in Plock, he was born in Nantes. His father wasn't a "pious German", he was an attorney from Provins. Verne never left Poland, because he'd never been to Poland. And most importantly, he wasn't raised Jewish, he was raised Catholic.
It might be a 100 years late, but maybe it's time for the Times to issue one of their famous corrections?