48 Jews – Biographies

Born Annelise Elsa Frieda Fleischmann into a German-Jewish family, Anni Albers became a leading 20th-century avant-garde innovator. Her fascination with art began in childhood. As a young adult, she enrolled at the Bauhaus in Weimar, where gender bias initially barred her from other disciplines, steering her toward weaving. There she developed boldly functional textiles and met her husband, fellow artist Josef Albers. When the Nazis condemned modern art as “degenerate,” the Bauhaus closed and the Albers were forced to flee Germany. With help from Museum of Modern Art curator Philip Johnson, they settled in North Carolina. Anni taught weaving at Black Mountain College while advancing her own textile practice. In 1949 she became the first woman and first textile artist to receive a solo exhibition at MoMA. Beginning in the 1960s, Albers turned to printmaking. For the next three decades, she traveled widely in Latin America and Europe to design, produce prints, and lecture. 

One of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century, Arendt was born into a German-Jewish family and studied philosophy at the University of Marburg before being forced to leave Germany in 1933. Fleeing to France, she lived in Paris for eight years, working with Jewish refugee organizations before immigrating to the United States in 1941, where she joined New York’s intellectual circles and began writing on antisemitism. Her seminal 1951 book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, analyzed Nazi and Stalinist regimes and sparked wide debate about the nature and sources of tyranny. Reporting on the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the Holocaust, Arendt published Eichmann in Jerusalem, introducing the controversial term the “banality of evil.” Arendt later produced influential essays on revolution, freedom, authority, tradition, and the modern age. 

Growing up during the Great Depression in Aberdeen, South Dakota and raised in the Christian Science faith, Helen Daniels Bader moved to Milwaukee after WWII. There she attended Downer College, and met Alfred Bader, a Holocaust refugee from Austria. Falling in love, she converted to Orthodox Judaism, and married Alfred in 1952. Together they co-founded the Aldrich Chemical Company. Later in life, Helen pursued a career as a licensed social worker, earning a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Joining the Milwaukee Jewish Home’s staff, early work with dementia patients led her to specialize in elder care, particularly for those living with Alzheimer’s disease.  

After her death, the Helen Bader Foundation was established in 1992 with a $100 million estate dedicated to supporting programs in Wisconsin and Israel. Despite Helen and Alfred’s divorce, Alfred and his second wife, Isabel, later merged their foundation with Helen’s to form Bader Philanthropies, which has distributed over $250 million dollars to strengthen communities and expand opportunities for disadvantaged populations. Helen Bader’s legacy endures through institutions and scholarships, including the Helen Bader School of Social Welfare and Institute for Nonprofit Management at UW-Milwaukee; Helen Bader Center at Ovation Jewish Home; Helen Bader Recital Hall at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music; the Helen Bader Concert Hall at UWM’s Peck School of the Arts; and the Legal Aid Society.  

Considered the “father of the video game,” Baer was born to a Jewish family in Southwestern Germany during the Weimar Republic.  His family fled Germany in 1938 in response to Nazi persecution, and he fought for the Allies during World War II.  After the war, Baer followed his childhood passion of electronics tinkering to earn a degree in Television Engineering and joined defense contractor Sander’s Associates, where his research and experiments led to the creations of the Magnavox Odyssey (1972), the first home video game console and the commercially successful pattern-matching game Simon (1979).  Baer’s electronics research and development proved to be integral to creating the home video game market and paved the way for interactive technology in military applications. Awarded the National Medal of Technology in 2006, when Baer died in 2014, he had over 150 patents to his name.  

One of the founders of the State of Israel, David Ben-Gurion was born in Tsarist Poland and immigrated to Ottoman Palestine after the Russian Revolution of 1905.  He initially worked as a laborer at the Petah Tikvah Jewish settlement and joined the Labor Zionist movement, which advocated for the establishment of a socialist Jewish state in Palestine.  After WWI,  Ben-Gurion joined the Jewish Agency for Palestine (Jewish Agency), the de facto organization representing the Jewish community in Palestine, and following its official formation, became chair in 1935.  During WWII, he encouraged Jews to volunteer for the British Army to overcome British immigration restrictions to British Mandated Palestine. After the war, he supported the Jewish Resistance Movement, advocating for the establishment of the State of Israel. On May 14, 1948, Ben-Gurion declared Israel’s independence, becoming the Jewish State’s first Prime Minister.  Retiring from politics in 1970, his final years were spent working on a multi-volume history of Israel’s early years.  

Known for his contributions to atomic science, Niels Bohr was born to a Jewish mother and gentile father, both from well-educated backgrounds. In the 1910s, Bohr traveled to England to work in Sir J.J. Thomson’s and Sir Ernest Rutherford’s respective theoretical physics laboratories to study atomic structure and Quantum Theory.  He went on to publish research papers that led to his being awarded the 1922 Nobel Prize for Physics.  Bohr continued to research until the Nazi invasion of Denmark in 1940, and under threat of persecution, he fled to the Allies through neutral Sweden. For the duration of WWII, Bohr collaborated with British and American scientists to build the atomic bomb for the Manhattan Project. During the post-war era, Bohr advocated for open dialogues and peaceful use of nuclear energy as outlined in his 1950 Open Letter to the United Nations.   

Known for his major contributions to modern philosophy, Martin Buber was born into a Viennese Jewish family and grew up in Lemberg in his grandfather’s traditional, Yiddish-speaking home. As a teenager, he became fascinated with secular philosophy, reading writers like Immanuel Kant, Søren Kierkegaard, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Their ideas led him to move away from strict religious practice and pursue studies in philosophy and art history instead. 

In 1898, Buber joined the Zionist movement and wrote widely about his ideas for a future Jewish state in Israel and how it should be shaped. He is best known for his book I and Thou (1923), where he introduced his “philosophy of dialogue.” Buber believed that real meaning comes from genuine, mutual relationships—what he called “I–Thou” encounters—rather than practical, transactional connections, or “I–It” relationships. 

He immigrated to Palestine in 1938 and taught philosophy and theology at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he remained until his death in 1965. 

Marc Chagall was born Moyshe Segal in Vitebsk, then part of the Russian Empire (today Belarus), the eldest of nine children in a poor Jewish family. He received a traditional Jewish education before attending a secular school, which he left without graduating. Chagall studied with local artist Jehuda Pen and later in Saint Petersburg with Léon Bakst, the Ballets Russes set designer. Inspired by the Avant-Garde, early 20th-century experimental art movements, he moved to Paris in 1911. 

Chagall’s art blends dreamlike imagery with Jewish heritage, personal experience, and Eastern European folk traditions, often inspired by shtetl life in the Pale of Settlement. He returned to Russia in 1914, supported the 1917 Revolution, and later lived in Berlin and Paris, becoming a French citizen in 1937. After the Nazis rose to power, his works were removed from German museums and labeled “degenerate.” The occupation of France forced him to flee to the U.S. in 1941, where he joined other émigrés. After World War II, he returned to France in 1948. Chagall remains the most well-known Jewish artist of the 20th century, leaving a lasting influence on modern art and Jewish culture. 

Drake was born to a Canadian Jewish mother and an African American father, who was a professional drummer. He attended Jewish day school and, as a teenager, worked weekends at his maternal grandfather’s furniture factory. At 15, he was cast in the hit Canadian television drama Degrassi: The Next Generation, becoming a main cast member for several seasons. During this time, he also pursued music, releasing mixtapes as a rapper and hip-hop artist that quickly gained a devoted following. 

In 2010, his debut album, Thank Me Later, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, marking the start of a career that has since included multiple multi-platinum releases and widespread commercial success. Drake has also publicly embraced his Jewish heritage, notably celebrating a re–Bar Mitzvah on his 31st birthday in 2017 and sharing his observance of Jewish holidays on social media. 

A significant contributor to the modern game of professional baseball, Dreyfuss was born to Jewish parents in Freiburg in present day Germany. He immigrated to Paducah, Kentucky where he became part owner of the Louisville Colonels of the major league American Association of Professional Baseball. Dreyfuss parlayed this into becoming part owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates of the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs (National League) in 1899. Dreyfuss played an integral role in creating the World Series to crown the preeminent professional baseball organization, and under his leadership, the Pirates would win the World Series in 1909 and 1925. In the wake of the 1919 Black Sox scandal, he also notably advocated for an office of the Commissioner. For his contributions to Major League Baseball, Dreyfuss was posthumously inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2008. 

Bob Dylan, born Robert Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota, became one of the most influential American singer-songwriters of the 20th century. Deeply inspired by American folk music—particularly Woody Guthrie—the Beat Generation, and modernist poetry, Dylan moved to New York City in 1961 and quickly became the voice of his generation. Songs like “The Times They Are a-Changin’” and “Blowin’ in the Wind” became anthems for the Civil Rights and counterculture movements. Among his many accolades, Dylan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. 

Dylan’s relationship with his Judaism has been complex. In the 1970s, he associated with the Jewish Defense League, later went through a period often described as “born-again Christian,” and subsequently recorded “Neighborhood Bully,” a pro-Israel song. In the 1990s and 2000s, Jewish publications frequently noted his attendance at High Holiday services. Dylan continues to tour and create music for his world-wide fan base.  

Born in Southern California, Zac Efron began performing in acting and musical theater at a young age. He rose to fame with the 2006 Disney Channel movie High School Musical and its sequels, and later starred in Hairspray, 17 Again, Neighbors, and The Greatest Showman, showcasing his versatility across comedy, drama, and musicals. Expanding beyond acting, he hosts the Netflix docuseries Down to Earth with Zac Efron, traveling to different countries to explore sustainable living, renewable energy, organic farming, and local food traditions, bringing global environmental issues to a broad audience. 

His Jewish heritage comes from his Polish paternal grandfather. While Efron doesn’t practice consistently, he identifies with Judaism and its culture, celebrating holidays with family and friends. His surname, “Efron,” in Hebrew means “young deer” or “fawn,” suggesting grace and agility. 

Albert Einstein, born to a Jewish family in Ulm, Germany, trained in physics and mathematics at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich. Unable to secure a university position, he worked as a technical assistant at the Swiss Patent Office. In 1905, he published four groundbreaking papers that transformed physics. Among them was his theory of special relativity, introducing the famous equation E = mc², showing that energy and mass are interchangeable. He later developed general relativity (1915), redefining gravity as the curvature of spacetime. His work on the photoelectric effect earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921. Einstein became Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics and a Professor at the University of Berlin until 1933, when he emigrated to the United States to escape Nazi persecution. During WWII, he contributed to research related to nuclear energy. After the war, he declined the presidency of Israel. Einstein remained a leading scientific and cultural figure until his death in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1955, leaving a legacy that reshaped physics and modern understanding of the universe. 

Born Erik Salomonsen in Frankfurt, Germany, to a Jewish mother, Karla Abrahamsen, Erik Erikson grew up not knowing his biological father and being treated as an outcast in school. These early experiences shaped his lifelong interest in identity and led him to become one of the foremost figures in developmental psychology. Erikson trained in psychoanalysis under Anna Freud in Vienna before emigrating to the United States in 1933 as Nazism rose in Europe. His research culminated in his influential lifespan model of development, proposing that identity unfolds through distinct stages shaped by social relationships and experience. His book Childhood and Society conveyed these ideas, broadening psychoanalytic theory beyond Freud’s emphasis on early childhood, underscoring the belief that a person’s sense of self grows and changes throughout life rather than being set at birth. A longtime Harvard professor, he introduced the term “identity crisis” and had a lasting influence on modern psychology. 

One of the most influential and controversial thinkers of his time, Sigmund Freud is credited with founding psychoanalysis. He was born to secular Jewish wool merchants from Moravia, a region in what is now the Czech Republic in Central Europe. Freud studied medicine at the University of Vienna and, after graduating, opened a medical practice focused on disorders of the nervous system and brain. 

Through his clinical work, he developed the idea that much of human personality and behavior operates unconsciously and is shaped by early childhood experiences, especially those involving love, loss, sexuality, and death. He introduced these ideas in major works such as The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) and Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), which although groundbreaking, sparked debate and drew criticism from the medical establishment. 

In 1902, Freud became Professor of Neuropathology at the University of Vienna, serving until the Nazi annexation of Austria—the Anschluss—in 1938. He fled to London soon after and died there the following year. 

Bettye Naomi Goldstein, born to Jewish parents in Peoria, Illinois, is credited with sparking the second wave of American feminism. Her father, Harry Goldstein, was a Russian immigrant jeweler, and her mother, Miriam Horowitz Goldstein, a Hungarian immigrant journalist. At Smith College, Friedan experienced antisemitism, which shaped her understanding of social oppression. In 1940, she worked with German Jewish refugee psychologist Kurt Lewin, whose ideas about scapegoating influenced her connection between societal misogyny and women’s internalized limitations. Graduating in 1943, she moved to New York City and became a journalist for labor and union organizations. 

In the 1950s, she conducted research that led to her landmark book, The Feminine Mystique (1963), examining women’s oppression and drawing parallels to the mistreatment of Jews. In 1966, Friedan co-founded the National Organization for Women, lobbying the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to enforce Title VII and advocating for reproductive rights. She remained a leading voice for gender equality, leaving a lasting impact on American society and the women’s rights movement. 

An Israeli-British illusionist, magician, television personality, and self-proclaimed psychic, Geller was born in Tel Aviv during the British Mandate of Palestine. His Jewish parents—father Michael, who served in the British Army and later in the Haganah (a Jewish defense organization in pre-state Palestine), and mother Rachel, a homemaker—raised him in a household that encouraged resilience, creativity, and showmanship, shaping his flair for performance and public persona. 

At 18, Geller joined the Israeli Army’s Paratroopers Brigade and was wounded during the Six-Day War. After a brief modeling career in the late 1960s, he became a celebrated entertainer in Israel. By the 1970s, he gained international fame for televised magic and psychic demonstrations, including his signature spoon bending. His 1975 book, The Geller Agenda, documented his feats and addressed scientific skepticism. Declassified documents suggest he worked with the CIA, and he has also claimed ties to Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, blending his career as a performer with unconventional espionage work. 

Born Joan Ruth Bader in Brooklyn, New York, to Jewish parents—her father a furrier, her mother a garment worker—Ruth Bader Ginsburg faced early challenges as a woman in law, wife, and mother. She attended Harvard Law School from 1956 to 1958, during which her husband, Martin, was diagnosed with a rare testicular cancer. Undeterred, she graduated from Columbia Law School in 1959 at the top of her class. Ginsburg taught at Rutgers University Law School and became the first tenured female professor at Columbia University Law School. Serving as director of the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, she fought gender discrimination throughout her career. President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1980. In 1993, she was nominated by President Bill Clinton to the Supreme Court, where she served until her death on September 18, 2020. On her Jewish heritage, Ginsburg reflected, “I am a judge born, raised, and proud of being a Jew. The demand for justice runs through the entirety of the Jewish tradition. I hope…to remain constant in the service of that demand.” 

A major figure in photography and an early pioneer of electronic record-keeping, Emanuel Goldberg was born to a Jewish family in Tsarist Russia and showed an early interest in chemistry and the science of light. He studied chemistry at Moscow State University and Leipzig University, remaining in Germany to escape the widespread antisemitism in Russia. 

After completing his studies in 1906, Goldberg joined Zeiss Ikon in Dresden, where he improved photographic emulsions. While experimenting with motion picture technology, he realized that light could be used to quickly index and retrieve information stored on microfilm—an innovation with far-reaching practical uses. 

In 1933, he was kidnapped by the Nazis and forced to leave Germany. He settled in Paris, continued working through a French subsidiary, and in 1937 immigrated to British mandated Palestine. Goldberg pursued research on light and electronics until his death in 1970. 

Known as the original “Hammerin’ Hank,” Hank Greenberg was born in New York City to Romanian-Jewish parents and showed exceptional talent playing baseball in high school. At 18, he signed with the Detroit Tigers and faced frequent antisemitism throughout his professional career. Greenberg made his Major League debut in 1933 and excelled in his sophomore season, helping lead the Tigers to a World Series appearance. During this pennant-winning season, he faced the decision of whether to play on Jewish High Holy Days and ultimately sat out on Yom Kippur, a choice that continues to inspire Jewish athletes today. 

In 1938, amid rising Fascism, Greenberg came close to breaking Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record, finishing with 58. He later reflected that hitting home runs felt like “hitting one against Hitler” as a Jew. After Pearl Harbor, Greenberg enlisted, serving four years in the Burma-China-India Theater. He returned to Major League Baseball through 1947 and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1956. 

Harry Houdini was one of the most beloved entertainers of the early 20th century. Born Ehrich Weiss in Budapest, Hungary, the Weiss family came to the United States in 1878 when his father, Mayer Samuel Weiss, was appointed the first rabbi of the Zion Reform Jewish Congregation in Appleton, Wisconsin. They moved to Milwaukee when Houdini was eight, where he spent formative years exploring dime museums, traveling acts, and contortionist shows, developing his physical skill and love of performance. 

As a teenager, he performed with circuses and sideshows, honing his magic and illusion abilities. By his early 20s, he was on the vaudeville circuit, thrilling audiences with audacious escapes from handcuffs, locked trunks, milk cans, and straitjackets. A master of self-promotion, he became one of the first true entertainment superstars. He also worked to expose Spiritualists as fraudsters, revealing the tricks behind their séances.

He died unexpectedly in 1926 while on tour, but his extraordinary showmanship and innovations in magic and escape artistry left a lasting legacy, inspiring generations of performers and captivating audiences worldwide. 

Franz Kafka was born in Prague to Jewish parents, Hermann Kafka, a haberdashery wholesaler, and Julie Löwyová. His family spoke German, and at his father’s insistence, he and his siblings were educated in Judaism, though the family rarely practiced it at home, and preparing for his Bar Mitzvah caused him anxiety. 

Kafka struggled under his father’s strictness and frequent family moves, experiencing solitude, depression, and intense self-criticism. He studied law at the German University in Prague and later worked at an insurance company, using his free afternoons to write, often late at night despite insomnia and a low tolerance for noise. He joined the “Prague Circle,” a group of Jewish-German writers exploring alienation and modernist themes, which shaped his enduring novels, including The Metamorphosis and The Trial. 

A lifelong hypochondriac, Kafka’s writing foreshadowed the rise of oppressive totalitarianism in Europe. Though he wished his manuscripts destroyed, they survived, gaining posthumous acclaim and securing his place as a foundational modernist writer. 

Frida Kahlo was born in Coyoacán, near Mexico City, to a German Jewish immigrant father and a mother of Amerindian and Spanish heritage. She became one of the most important Mexican artists of the 20th century, known for self-portraits that explored identity, politics, and social issues. While Kahlo did not practice Judaism, her Jewish heritage contributed to her sense of “outsider” identity, which shaped her art and personal perspective. 

Kahlo contracted polio at age six, leaving her with a lifelong limp. In 1922, a severe bus accident nearly killed her, and during her recovery she began painting from her bed using a ceiling-mounted mirror. Her self-portraits convey the intense physical pain and suffering she endured. 

She formed a lifelong artistic and personal connection with Diego Rivera, marrying him in 1929. The couple maintained separate homes and had affairs, including Kahlo’s affair with Leon Trotsky while they sheltered him in 1937. She died at age 47 of a pulmonary embolism. 

Elizabeth “Lizzie” Black Kander was born to Reform Jewish parents in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who instilled in her the importance of civic virtue and progressive ideals. In 1878, she graduated as valedictorian of Milwaukee East Side High School, giving a speech titled “When I Become President.” She founded the Ladies’ Relief Sewing Society, collecting and repairing clothes for the needy. This organization evolved into The Settlement House, which largely focused on helping Jewish immigrants assimilate – particularly Eastern European Jewish women. Offering classes in history, cooking, childcare, and physical education, as well as cultural clubs, a library, a bank, and public baths, the House later grew into what is now the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center.

Kander is best known for The Settlement Cookbook. First published in 1901 after she secured $18 from the all-male board to fund it, the cookbook, influenced by Jewish traditions and widely used by immigrants of all backgrounds, eventually had 40 editions published and sold more than two million copies. Kander continued serving the Milwaukee community throughout her life, leaving a lasting legacy of social reform and cultural enrichment.

A leading figure in the post–World War II Abstract Expressionist movement, Lee Krasner was born in Brooklyn, New York, to observant Russian Jewish immigrants and showed an early interest in visual art. She pursued formal training at the Women’s Art School at Cooper Union, the National Academy of Design, and the Art Students League of New York, developing a strong technical foundation before turning fully to abstraction. 

During the Great Depression, Krasner worked for the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project, which supported community art initiatives across the country. Through this New Deal program, she met fellow Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock, whom she later married. Although often overshadowed by Pollock’s fame, Krasner established a powerful artistic voice of her own. Her dynamic, large-scale works have been exhibited internationally, including at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Tate Gallery in London. Notably, she began each of her paintings in the upper-right corner, echoing the direction of Hebrew writing. 

An important contributor to America’s literary heritage, Emma Lazarus was born to Portuguese-Jewish parents of Sephardi descent whose ancestors settled in the New World during the early British Colonial era. Showing a talent for writing at a young age, her work attracted the attention of Ralph Waldo Emerson. In the 1880s, Lazarus began incorporating references to her Jewish heritage, culture, and identity into her prose, often addressing the persecution of Jews in Tsarist Russia. She composed her most famous poem, “The New Colossus,” in 1883, advocating acceptance of immigrants to America. Its famous lines, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” were engraved on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in 1903. She also championed Jewish immigrants and the idea of a Jewish homeland in Ottoman Empire controlled Palestine, expanding her literary voice into active engagement with the pressing humanitarian concerns of her era. 

A chemist and Holocaust survivor, Primo Levi was born into a Jewish family in Piedmont, a region in northwest Italy bordering France and Switzerland, whose ancestors escaped the Spanish Inquisition. He grew up under Italian fascism, where Jews faced escalating discrimination, including mandatory registration with local authorities. While studying chemistry at the University of Turin’s School of Sciences, Levi joined anti-fascist student groups after the 1938 Racial Laws stripped Italian Jews of their civil rights. 

During World War II, he joined the Action Party (Partito d’Azione) partisan movement but was arrested and sent first to the Fossoli di Carpi camp in northern Italy, then to Auschwitz in Poland, where he endured forced labor until his liberation in 1945. Seeking to confront his trauma, Levi recounted his experiences in the 1947 memoir If This Is a Man. In the years that followed, he continued to write and speak out against Holocaust revisionism as it rose in Germany and worldwide. 

Gustav Mahler was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer and one of the most influential conductors of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He grew up in Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) in a large Jewish family marked by profound loss—eight of his siblings died in childhood, and his brother Otto later took his own life. These tragedies left a lasting imprint on Mahler, echoed in the funeral marches and elegiac motifs that permeate his symphonies. In 1888, he was appointed Chief Conductor of the Royal Hungarian Opera, a major milestone in his rising career. Later, after converting to Catholicism—a condition of the post—he secured the prestigious directorship of the Vienna Court Opera. 

Following his death in 1911, Mahler’s music fell out of favor, experiencing only a brief revival in Austria during the 1930s before being banned as “degenerate” by the Nazi regime. In the decades after World War II, however, his works were rediscovered and widely celebrated, profoundly influencing a new generation of composers. 

Barry Manilow, born Barry Alan Pincus in Brooklyn to a Russian-Jewish mother and Jewish and Irish Catholic father, was raised by his mother and maternal grandparents after his parents divorced. He took his mother’s surname shortly before his Bar Mitzvah. Reflecting on his childhood, he has said, “We were very poor, but I never knew it. I was given a secure upbringing… Grandma and Grandpa taught me Jewish traditions and raised me to be polite, caring, and sensitive, a gentleman.” 

After studying at The Juilliard School, Manilow worked in television and advertising before his breakthrough collaboration with Bette Midler. His 1970s hits, including “Mandy” and “Copacabana (At the Copa),” made him an international star. In 2008, Manilow was part of the Broadway show Harmony which explored antisemitism in Weimar and Nazi-era Germany. The show featured songs about antisemitism and the Holocaust, which he performed in Milwaukee the same year.  

Manilow married his longtime manager, Garry Kief, in 2014. A two-time Emmy winner and Grammy recipient, he has sold more than 85 million records and continues to perform. 

Golda Meir was a trailblazer in Israeli politics and one of the most influential figures in modern Jewish history. Born Golda Mabovitch to Jewish parents in Kiev, then part of the Russian Empire, she immigrated with her family to Milwaukee in 1906. Fiercely independent, she briefly ran away to live with her sister in Denver, where she deepened her commitment to Zionism. Returning to Milwaukee, she joined Poale Zion, the Labor Zionist movement, and met her future husband, Morris Meyerson. The couple married in 1917 before making Aliyah in 1921—relocating to the Land of Israel as part of the Zionist vision of Jewish national return. 

In Palestine, Meir joined the Jewish Agency and rose within its leadership. She was one of 25 signatories of Israel’s Declaration of Independence in 1948 and later served for decades in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. In 1969, she became Israel’s first female Prime Minister, leading the country through the Yom Kippur War. 

Golda Meir’s legacy endures as a symbol of determination, leadership, and vision. She is remembered for shaping Israel’s early statehood, her steadfast commitment to Zionism, and her groundbreaking example as a woman leading a nation in a turbulent era. 

Among the most celebrated American playwrights of the 20th century, Arthur Miller was born in New York City to middle-class Jewish parents who owned a garment manufacturing business. The collapse of the family business during the Great Depression profoundly shaped him, as he worked to save money for college and witnessed the hardships facing American Jews and other immigrants. He later attended the University of Michigan, refining his craft before joining the Federal Theater Project, a New Deal–era initiative created to provide jobs for unemployed theater professionals during the economic crisis of the 1930s.  

Miller rose to prominence on Broadway with All My Sons (1947), followed by Death of a Salesman (1949), which won the Pulitzer Prize, and The Crucible (1953), an allegory of McCarthy-era persecution. In 1956, he married Marilyn Monroe, who converted to Judaism before their marriage ended in 1961. Later, in a new introduction to his novel Focus (1948), Miller reflected on evolving forms of antisemitism in America following the founding of Israel, reaffirming his enduring engagement with Jewish identity and experience. 

Leonard Nimoy, born in Boston to Ukrainian Jewish immigrants, grew up in a largely Jewish neighborhood, attended an Orthodox synagogue, and spoke Yiddish at home. He developed an early interest in theater and moved to California at 18 to pursue acting, appearing in small film and television roles. In 1966, he debuted as Spock on Star Trek, creating the iconic Vulcan salute, inspired by the priestly blessing of the kohanim (Jewish priests descended from Aaron, brother of Moses). Although the series had a short run, it led to multiple films in which Nimoy reprised the role. 

He later directed films, including Three Men and a Baby (1987), and produced and starred in Never Forget, about Holocaust survivor Mel Mermelstein. A passionate photographer, he created the 2002 Shekhina Project, Kabala-inspired images exploring the feminine aspect of God. Nimoy once said there is a “strong strain of Judaism” in everything he does. 

Bertha Pappenheim, a key figure in the development of psychoanalysis, was born into a wealthy Orthodox Jewish family in Vienna, Austria. In 1880, she began experiencing mental illness and instability, which led her to Dr. Josef Breuer. Over two years, Breuer treated her with talk therapy, and his case notes, shared with Dr. Sigmund Freud, became the foundation for their co-authored Studies on Hysteria. In the book, she was referred to under the pseudonym Anna O and described as cured, though her symptoms persisted for several years. 

Pappenheim later devoted herself to social activism, founding The League of Jewish Women to provide welfare programs for the less fortunate. While initially undecided about Jewish settlement in British Mandated Palestine, she became a supporter after the Nazi Party came to power in 1933. She died shortly after being arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo in 1936, leaving a lasting legacy in both psychoanalysis and Jewish social reform. 

Elvis Aaron Presley was born to Vernon and Gladys Love Presley in Tupelo, Mississippi. It has become more widely known that he had Jewish heritage on his mother’s side—his maternal great-great-grandmother, born in Mississippi, likely descended from immigrants from Lithuania. Because his lineage was maternal, some could consider Elvis Jewish. When the Presley family moved to Memphis in 1948, they lived below a Rabbi and his family. At thirteen, Elvis served as the family’s “Shabbos goy,” performing tasks observant Jews were forbidden to do, though his Jewish roots were unknown. 

After his mother’s death, Elvis helped design her headstone, which features both a Star of David and a Christian cross. He was known to wear a Chai necklace alongside a cross, saying it would guarantee his entry into heaven. Drawing on gospel, blues, and country music, he revolutionized popular music in the 1950s. Elvis died at Graceland at 42, but his energetic performances, distinctive voice, and charismatic stage presence earned him the title “King of Rock and Roll,” making him one of the most influential cultural figures of the 20th century. 

Marcel Proust was born Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust, a novelist, essayist, and literary critic who became a major influence on modernist writing. Born to a middle-class family with a Jewish mother and raised Catholic, he was sensitive, affectionate, and had a flair for showing off. His parents hoped he would become a lawyer or diplomat, but he gravitated toward writing. His early work showed his wide knowledge of literature, full of stylistic flourishes and references to famous authors. Proust claimed that half of his schoolmates imitated his style while the other half mocked him.   

In Paris, he contributed to avant-garde periodicals, including La Revue Blanche. Regarded as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, Proust’s seven-volume In Search of Lost Time, reflects his awareness of 19th-century French antisemitism, including his defense of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer wrongfully convicted of treason. Proust’s close friendships with men also influenced his writing, shaping his observations on love and the social constraints of the era. After years of poor health, he died of pneumonia in Paris. 

Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz in Dvinsk, Russia, grew up in an Orthodox, Zionist household. His family immigrated to Portland, Oregon, and he studied briefly at Yale before moving to New York City to attend the Art Students League. Beginning in 1929, he taught for twenty years at the Center Academy of the Brooklyn Jewish Center. By 1933, his work appeared in solo and group exhibitions in Portland and New York. During the 1930s, he worked for the WPA (Works Progress Administration), creating subway scenes that conveyed the isolation of commuters. In 1940, he became a founding member of the Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors. 

Initially figurative and surrealist, his art evolved by the 1950s into abstract compositions featuring soft-edged, stacked rectangles, defining his signature style in abstract expressionism. Though not observant since his teens, Rothko remained connected with Jewish artists like Adolph Gottlieb and Barnett Newman, citing Jewish history and traditions as an influence on his work. Having suffered several health scares in the 1960s, Rothko died by suicide in his studio on February 25, 1970. 

Jeffrey Sachs, a leading economist, currently directs the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. Raised in a Jewish household in Oak Park, Michigan, he earned his PhD in economics from Harvard University and joined its faculty in 1980, eventually becoming the Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade. He later served as Director of Columbia’s Earth Institute, working to connect Earth science with business and government policies to tackle climate challenges.  

Sachs is widely recognized for his work on global poverty, debt crises, and sustainable development, advising countries in Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe on economic reform. He helped design the Millennium Villages Project to reduce extreme poverty, served as an economic adviser to the United Nations, and has authored influential books including The End of Poverty and Common Wealth. His research and policy work have shaped international responses to financial crises, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic. 

A pioneering astronomer and planetary scientist at the dawn of the Space Age, Carl Sagan was born into a Russian-Jewish family and studied physics, astronomy, and astrophysics at the University of Chicago. A key contributor to the space program, he advised both manned missions and planetary probe missions, helping advance our understanding of the solar system. Through his research, Sagan provided evidence supporting the possibility that life may once have existed on Mars. He also played a vital role in popularizing science and astronomy, co-producing and hosting the 1980 Public Broadcasting Service series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. Viewed by more than 500 million people worldwide, the series remains one of the most-watched public television programs ever produced, inspiring generations to explore the universe. 

Providing political and military leadership during the early American Revolutionary War, Francis Salvador came from a Sephardic Jewish family in London, England, whose members helped establish small Jewish communities in Colonial North America. Primarily a planter and farmer, he arrived in South Carolina in 1773 to manage his family’s land and witnessed the colonies’ growing unrest against Great Britain. Eager to support independence, he was elected as a delegate to South Carolina’s Provincial Congress, becoming the first Jewish representative in a South Carolinian assembly. In 1776, he earned the nickname “The Southern Paul Revere” for riding into the backcountry to warn militias of an impending attack by Native American allies of the British.

Ambushed by Loyalists and Cherokee warriors, Salvador was killed shortly after joining the Continental Army. After being shot, historical accounts indicate he was scalped—a common practice in frontier warfare at the time. He is remembered as the first Jewish soldier to die for American independence, making his death both militarily and symbolically significant.

Sheldon Allan Silverstein, born to Jewish parents in Chicago, Illinois, became an author, cartoonist, playwright, poet, performer, and Grammy-winning songwriter. Growing up during the Depression, he faced family stress and instability, and drawing became an early escape, inspired by cartoonists like Virgil Partch and Al Capp. Raised in a Jewish household, his experiences of community, cultural identity, and feeling like an outsider influenced his focus on individuality, imagination, and empathy in his work. 

A non-conformist student, he briefly attended the University of Illinois, the Chicago Academy of Fine Art, and Roosevelt University, where an English teacher encouraged his writing. Drafted into the army, he never graduated, but while serving in Asia during the 1950s he wrote for the military magazine Stars and Stripes. In 1960, he wrote and illustrated a book featuring his characteristic cartoons and humor aimed at an adult audience. He later turned to children’s literature, creating classics like Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back, The Giving Tree, and Where the Sidewalk Ends, inspiring generations of young readers to dream and imagine. 

A pioneer in feminist art and a committed activist, Nancy Spero was born into a Jewish family in Cleveland, Ohio, and spent most of her life in New York City. While studying at the Art Institute of Chicago, she met World War II veteran and fellow artist Leon Golub, whom she married in 1950. Sharing a passion for modern art, they lived in Paris from 1959 to 1964, studying motifs from ancient Mediterranean art. When they returned to the U.S., Spero found the country in upheaval over the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War.  Responding, she created works that reflected the emotional trauma of the era. Her War Series directly addressed the violence and destruction portrayed in the media. Later, she co-founded the women’s cooperative A.I.R. Gallery to support and showcase women artists. Throughout her career, Spero also produced work linking femininity with the repression and brutality of contemporary Latin American governments, establishing her as a vital voice in political and feminist art. 

A central patron of modern art during Europe’s interwar period, Gertrude Stein was born to German-Jewish parents in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. Her family traveled through Europe, visiting Vienna and Paris, before settling in Oakland, California. She studied psychology at Radcliffe College and later attended medical school at Johns Hopkins University, though she did not complete her degree. 

In 1903, Stein moved to Paris, where her Left Bank salon became a hub for the modern art movement. Her gatherings encouraged debates on art and politics, and she mentored artists such as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, as well as writers like James Joyce and Ezra Pound. She shared her life and home with her longtime partner, Alice B. Toklas, a constant collaborator and supporter. 

Stein wrote modernist works including Three Lives (1909) and The Making of Americans (1925). She remained in Paris during World War II, through the Nazi occupation and Vichy administration, and died there in 1946. 

Born Gladys Mae Sellers in 1889 and raised in Milwaukee, Madame Goldye Steiner broke barriers during the first half of the 20th century by becoming the first known Black American woman to perform Jewish liturgical music. In the early 1920s, she sang over WAAK radio and performed across Milwaukee and nearby cities. In 1922, she moved to New York City, adopted the stage name Madame Goldye Steiner, and earned acclaim in the vibrant Yiddish theater scene.

Performing in Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian, German, French, and English, Steiner was a defining voice of the “golden age of Khazones,” when Ashkenazi religious music reached audiences inside and outside the synagogue. Her recordings gained widespread popularity, even as she faced racial discrimination. As a woman, she also met opposition in some religious communities due to Kol Isha, a rule restricting men from listening to women sing.

In early August 2024, through the efforts of singer and educator Shahanna McKinney Baldon—who has researched Steiner and performed as her onstage—and the Wisconsin Black Historical Society, community members dedicated a marker at Steiner’s previously unmarked grave in Mount Olivet Cemetery, honoring her life and groundbreaking career.

Recognized as one of the most dynamic players of his era, Amar’e Stoudemire played 14 seasons in the NBA, primarily with the Phoenix Suns and New York Knicks, earning six All-Star selections and the 2003 Rookie of the Year award. 

Raised in the Baptist faith, he was told by his mother that he descended from Black Hebrew Israelites, which influenced his later exploration of Judaism. Around 2010, Stoudemire began studying Jewish tradition more seriously. In 2019, he was granted Israeli citizenship, and in 2020 he formally converted to Orthodox Judaism, taking the Hebrew name Yahoshafat Ben Avraham. 

He embraces Jewish practice fully—observing holidays, Shabbat, keeping kosher, and wearing tzitzit (fringes on a garment reminding one of God’s commandments) and a kippah (a small skullcap symbolizing reverence for God) as part of his daily spiritual life. 

After retiring from the NBA, he continued his basketball career in Israel with Hapoel Jerusalem and Maccabi Tel Aviv, winning championships. In 2025, Stoudemire was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.  

Leon Trotsky was a central figure in the Russian Revolution and Civil War. Born Lev Davidovich Bronstein in Yanovka, Ukraine to a prosperous Jewish farming family, he briefly attended a heder, a traditional Jewish elementary school that often served as a child’s first formal education in Eastern Europe. He became a revolutionary early, organizing the South Russian Workers Union and later being exiled to Siberia. Initially a Menshevik reformer, he later joined Vladimir Lenin and the radical Bolsheviks that led the 1917 Russian Revolution, founding the Red Army and helping establish the Soviet Union. 

After Lenin’s death, his rival Joseph Stalin exiled him in 1927. In Mexico, he and his wife Natalia Sedova stayed with Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, prominent in the Mexican Communist movement, and Trotsky briefly had an affair with Kahlo. Trotsky continued writing influential works, including My Life, The Permanent Revolution, and History of the Russian Revolution, until he was assassinated by Ramón Mercader, a Spanish agent acting on Stalin’s orders. 

Renowned for his work in Judaic and Holocaust scholarship, Elie Wiesel was born to observant Romanian-Jewish parents and, from an early age, immersed himself in the study of the Torah, Talmud, and Kabbalah. In 1944 Nazi Germany occupied Hungary. That year, nearly all Jews in the Hungarian countryside—including Wiesel’s family—were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. His parents and younger sister were murdered there; he and his two older sisters survived and were liberated in 1945. 

After the War, Wiesel moved to France, where he struggled with grief and displacement. The novelist François Mauriac encouraged him to write about his experiences, resulting in Night (1956), which was first published in Yiddish and later translated into French and English. Widely read and taught, it is one of the most influential Holocaust memoirs and a cornerstone of Holocaust education. He later taught at universities in the U.S., and for his contributions to Judaic and Holocaust writings, Wiesel received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1986 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1992. 

Gene Wilder became a legend in entertainment with memorable performances on stage and screen. Born Jerome Silberman in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he first explored acting while attending Washington High School. As a young professional, Wilder performed on Broadway, co-starring with Anne Bancroft in Mother Courage and Her Children in 1963. Bancroft introduced him to Jewish comedian Mel Brooks, and together they created some of the most enduring comedies in film history, including The Producers, Young Frankenstein, and Blazing Saddles. 

Wilder also captured audiences worldwide as Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971). His whimsical, unpredictable portrayal blended charm, humor, and dramatic depth, helping the film become a beloved classic across generations. 

Known for fully embracing his roles, Wilder infused his characters with both intensity and playful humor. In 1984, he married Gilda Radner, a fellow Jewish actor and Saturday Night Live comedienne. After her premature death in 1989, he founded Gilda’s Club to support cancer patients and their families, leaving a lasting legacy in comedy and film. 

Zhao Yingcheng was a Chinese-Jewish scholar and mandarin from the Kaifeng Jewish community, one of the longest-lasting Jewish settlements outside the Middle East. The community traced its origins to Mizrahi Persian Jews invited to China during the Northern Song dynasty (960–1127). Over centuries, they established a synagogue, studied Hebrew, and observance Jewish festivals while also integrating into Chinese society.  

In 1642, at the end of the Ming dynasty, Kaifeng was devastated when the Yellow River flooded, destroying the synagogue and submerging sacred texts. Zhao and other community members rescued fragments of Torah scrolls, which were later reassembled to restore religious life. 

Zhao mastered both Hebrew and Chinese and passed the highest imperial civil service exams, earning the jinshi degree, qualifying him for senior government positions. He held roles including Director of the Ministry of Justice before returning to Kaifeng to help rebuild the city, restore the synagogue, and ensure the survival of the Jewish community.