Anielewicz, Mordecai (1919 -1943) Warsaw ghetto Jewish resistance leader.
Ascoli, Ettore (1873 -1943)Jewish - Italian soldier, major-general. At the age of 70 he joined the partisans and was killed.Baruch de Spinoza (1632 -1677) see Spinoza
Babel, Isaac (1894 -1939) Russian - Jewish writer
Born in Aldgate, London, Mendoza learned at a young age to defend himself with his fists. In 1780 he won his first professional fight. A natural middleweight, Mendoza became the father of scientific boxing by devising defensive moves that enabled him to fight against much heavier opponents. His ring success brought him to the attention of the Prince of Wales and he became the first boxer to receive royal patronage. Mendoza’s ascendancy to boxing heights, and his acceptance by royalty, helped ease the position of the Jew in the English community. He proudly billed himself as “Mendoza the Jew.” He opened his own boxing academy and became a teacher. He went on tour and gave boxing exhibitions in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Mendoza lost the title of English Champion to John Jackson on a ninth-round knockout on April 15, 1795. He wrote The Art of Boxing (London, 1789) and The Memoirs of the Life of Daniel Mendoza (London, 1816). In 1954 Mendoza was one of the inaugural group chosen for the Boxing Hall of Fame in the United States. Bibliography: H.D. Miles, Pugilistica, 1 (1880); H.U. Ribalow, Fighter from Whitechapel (1962).
Bakst Leon (1866 -1924) Russian- Jewish painter ( Lev Rosenberg)
Barsimson, Jacob first known Jewish settler who came to New York (New Amsterdam) from Holland on August 22, 1654.
Haym Solomon was the first known Polish Jew who came to New York in 1772.
Bernstein Leonard (August 25, 1918 - October 14, 1990)was a multi-Emmy and Grammy award-winning and Academy Award nominated American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist.
Chagall, Marc (1887-1985) was born in Liozno, Vitepsk, Russia. Was stadiing in heder.
Cremieux, Adolphe layer and statement, who abolished slavery in French colonies, enfranchised Algerian Jews, and went to the middle east during the notorious “Damascus Affair” to save Jewish prisoners in Damascus from gallows, and the community from mob violence, following the anti-Semitic blood libel of 1840. [Story of my Life by Moshe Dayan]
Cohn, Ferdinand (1828-1898) The father of modern bacteriology, was born in Jewish ghetto in Breslau.
Dubnov Simon was born in White Russia in 1860. Among his ancestors were many distinguished rabbis. He devoted his entire life to the study of Jewish history; his historical method marked a turning point in Jewish historiography. He engaged in his studies and prolific writings in St. Petersburg and Odessa until the Com- munist revolution, whereupon he moved to Germany. With the advent of Hitler he moved to Riga in Latvia where he lived until 1941. Then, at the age of 81, he was murdered by the Nazis as they herded a group of Jews from the ghetto.
Disraeli, Benjamin (1804-1881) - politician
see photo Benjamin Disraeli
Einstein, Albert (1879-1955).
Read his view on
Jewish Ideals, Judaism, Anti-Semitism.
In 1921, Albert Einstein presented a paper on his then-infant Theory of Relativity at the Sorbonne, the prestigious French university. "If I am proved correct," he said, "the Germans will call me a German, the Swiss will call me a Swiss citizen, and the French will call me a great scientist. If relativity is proved wrong, the French will call me a Swiss, the Swiss will call me a German, and the Germans will call me a Jew.
Edelman, Marek (1922-2009)was a Polish political and social activist. During World War II he was one of the founders of the Jewish Combat Organization. He took part in the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and became its' leader following the death of Mordechaj Anielewicz.[WIKI]
Ehrlich, Paul (1854-1915) medical scientist
Israel ben Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tov (abbrev. the Baal Shem), 1700- 1760 Founder of Hasidism. Read GENEALOGY OF THE HASIDIC MASTERS by Martin Buber.
FRIDMAN, GAL (1975 -), Israeli windsurfer; first Israeli ever to win an Olympic gold medal and the first Israeli to win two Olympic medals. Born in the Israeli moshav of Karkur, near Haderah, Fridman – whose first name, Gal, means “wave” in Hebrew – began windsurfing when he was six years old and competing at age 11, under the coaching of his father.
Famous Jewish Quotes A collection of Quotations from Famous Jews.
GOLDSMID, Albert Edward Williamson 1846–1904. English soldier and Zionist. Born in Poona, India, into an assimilated Anglo-Jewish family, Goldsmid became a regular soldier and served as a staff colonel in the Boer War (1899– 1902). He reasserted his Jewish identity in adult life, becoming a keen Zionist. In 1892 he took a year’s absence from the army to spend with the Jewish colonists in the Argentine. He was an enthusiastic supporter of HERZL, and in 1898 helped to found the English Zionist Federation. Goldsmid was a member of the El-Arish Commission in 1903, to explore the possibility of Jewish settlement in Sinai. The hero of George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda is said to have been based on Goldsmid. [Who’s Who in Jewish History, 1974]
Goldwyn, Samuel (Shmuel Gelbfisz 1882 -1974) US film pioneer
Maria Kondratyevna Gorokhovskaya (1921 in Eupatoria - 2001 in Tel Aviv) was a Ukrainian - Jewish (formerly Soviet) gymnast. Gorokhovskaya won her first U.S.S.R. gymnastic title on the balance beam in 1948. At the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, she won seven medals, the most medals won by any woman in a single Olympics and were the first ever won by the Soviet Union.
Greenstein, Joseph L. (1893-October 8, 1977), better known as "The Mighty Atom", was a 20th century strongman.
The best known Jewish Gangsters in the 1920s and 1930s - Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, Longy Zwillman, Moe Dalitz, David Berman.
HART, Aaron 1724–1800. English settler in Canada. Aaron Hart emigrated to New York from London in about 1752, and in 1760 served with the British troops as a commissary officer. He settled in Three Rivers, north-west of Montreal, where he acquired property and developed commercial interests. He played a leading role in the public life of the region, becoming postmaster of the second post office in British Canada, and raising a local militia to protect British interests against the French. His commercial initiatives helped Three Rivers develop into an important trading and commercial centre, and for more than a century his descendants remained associated with the town. On his death he was reputed to be the wealthiest man in British Canada. [Who’s Who in Jewish History, 1974]
Heine, Heinrich (1797-1856) poet
Heifetz, Jasha (1901-87) violinist
Hertz Heinrich Rudolf
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz [22 February 1857 – 1 January 1894) was a German physicist who first conclusively proved the existence of the
electromagnetic waves theorized by James Clerk Maxwell's electromagnetic theory of light. The unit of frequency, cycle per second, was named the
"Hertz" in his honor.
Heinrich Hertz was a Lutheran throughout his life and would not have considered himself Jewish, as his father's family had all converted to Lutheranism
HOS, Dov 1894–1940. Labour Zionist leader. Hos was brought to Palestine from Byelorussia in 1906, at the age of twelve, and graduated from the Herzliah Gymnazia. At the outbreak of World War I he joined the Turkish army and reached officer rank. For helping in the defence of Jewish settlements he was court-martialled and condemned to death, in absentia, but eluded capture and joined the Jewish Legion. [Who’s Who in Jewish History, 1974]
Houdini, Harry ( Ehrich Weiss)(1874- 1926) magician
Jabotinsky, Zeev (1880-1940) born Vladimir Yevgenyevich Zhabotinsky, founder of the Jewish Self-Defense Organization in Odessa.
see photo Zeev Jabotinsky
Jacobi Moritz Moritz Hermann (Boris Semyonovich) von Jacobi (21 September 1801 – 10 March 1874) was a German and Russian engineer and physicist born in Potsdam. Jacobi worked mainly in Russia. He furthered progress in galvanoplastics, electric motors, and wire telegraphy. His family was Jewish. He was a brother of the mathematician Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi.
American Presidential Jewish History US Presidents and Jews
Famous Jews in the Olympics before World War II Jews in the Olympics
Kafka, Franz (1883-1924) Famous German-speaking Jewish writer was born in Prague, now in the Czech Republic
KISCH, Frederick Herman 1888–1943. British soldier and Zionist. Kisch was born in India, the son of a British official, and became a professional soldier in the Royal Engineers. During World War I he served mainly in Mesopotamia, and worked in military intelligence in London while convalescing from wounds. After the war he was a military adviser with the British delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. He was killed by a landmine near Tunis, in April 1943. A moshav in Galilee named Kfar Kisch. [Who’s Who in Jewish History, 1974]
Lamarr Hedy [Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler](November 9, 1913 – January 19, 2000) - Jewish -American actress who co-invented – with composer George Antheil – an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping, necessary to wireless communication from the pre-computer age to the present day. They submitted the idea of a secret communication system in June 1941. On August 11, 1942, US Patent 2,292,387 was granted to Antheil and "Hedy Kiesler Markey", Lamarr's married name at the time.
LEVI-BIANCHINI, Angelo 1887– 1920. Italian naval officer and Zionist. A naval commander with a distinguished war record and experience in diplomatic assignments, Levi-Bianchini became an enthusiastic Zionist. He worked with Dr WEIZMANN on the Zionist Commission in Palestine in 1918, and at the San Remo Conference in 1920. In that year he was killed by Bedouin tribesmen in Transjordan, while on a mission to Damascus for the Italian government. [Who’s Who in Jewish History, 1974]
Libetkin Zivia (1914 - 76) She was one of the leaders of the Jewish fighting when the Warsaw ghetto rose up on April 19, 1943. She escaped the getto via the sewagw systemand fought with the partisans.
Marcel Marceau (22 March 1923 – 22 September 2007) was an internationally acclaimed French actor and mime. He was a member of the French Resistance in Limoges during the German occupation.
Michel Montaigne. His mother, Antoinette de Louppes, was of an Iberian Jewish family.
[See p 76 'The World we Want' by Mark Kingwell]
MONASH, Sir John 1865–1931. Australian engineer and soldier. Monash was a successful civil engineer in Victoria. In World War I he first became prominent as a brigade commander in the unsuccessful Gallipoli campaign of 1915. After that he served in France and rose rapidly until in 1918, as a lieutenant general, he led the entire ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand) Corps in the final offensive that broke the German lines. As a lieutenant-general, he was the highest ranking Jew in any modern army. Monash was president of the Australian Zionist Federation (1928). The settlement of Kfar Monash in Israel was named after him. Was knighten by King George V. In 1950 an equestrian statue was erected in Melbourne.[Who’s Who in Jewish History, 1974]
Mendelssohn, Moses (1729-1786) philosopher
Mikhoels, Solomon (1890 - January 12/13, 1948) was a Soviet Jewish actor and the artistic
director of the Moscow State Jewish Theater. Mikhoels served as the chairman of the
Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee during the Second World War. In 1948, Mikhoels was murdered
on the orders of Stalin. [From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.]
see photo Solomon Mikhoels
Miller, Arthur (1915-2005) playwright
Napoleon Bonaparte and Jews In 1806 Napoleon convened the Assembly of Jewish Notables, which redefined traditional Judaism and transformed the Jews into French citizens. Napoleon thus questioned the Jews' loyalty to France on doctrinal issues rather than simply accepting their economic loyalty, as the revolutionaries had done. The assembly led to two laws enacted on May 30, 1806, and March 17, 1808, which proclaimed this loyalty but also deprived northeastern Jews of their economic freedom.
Netter,Charles who in 1870 founded and directed the first Jewish agricultural school in Palestine at Mikveh Israel.[Story of my Life by Moshe Dayan.]
Neumann John von Neumann ( Hungarian: Neumann János Lajos, December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, and polymath. Von Neumann was generally regarded as the foremost mathematician of his time and said to be "the last representative of the great mathematicians"; a genius who was comfortable integrating both pure and applied sciences. Von Neumann was born Neumann János Lajos to a wealthy Jewish family.
Nirenberg, Marshall Warren (April 10, 1927 – January 15, 2010) was an American biochemist and geneticist. He shared a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1968
Noah, Mordecai Manuel (July 19, 1785 - May 22, 1851),zionist, founder of New York University.
NONES, Benjamin 1757–1826. US soldier. Nones was born in Bordeaux, France, and came to the United States during the revolutionary period. He served as an aide to General Washington, with the rank of major, and was cited for bravery in battle. After independence, he settled in Philadelphia and became a leader of the local Jewish community. He supported the abolitionist movement and voluntarily freed his own slaves. [Who’s Who in Jewish History, 1974]
OBERNIK, JUDAH (d. c. 1520), talmudist, rabbi of Mestre. Judah was a pupil of Israel Isserlein.
OBERMANN, JULIAN JOËL (1888–1956), Orientalist. Born in Warsaw, Obermann taught Semitic languages at the University of Hamburg from 1919 to 1922, achieving recognition with the publication of his work on the philosophy of Al-Ghazali in 1921. He subsequently became professor of Semitic philology at the Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, where he taught from 1923 to 1931.
OCHS, SIEGFRIED (1858–1929), conductor and composer. Born in Frankfurt, Germany, Ochs founded the Berlin Philharmonic Choir in 1882.
OESTERREICHER, TOBIAS VON (1831–1893), Austro- Hungarian rear-admiral.
OFFENBACH, ISAAC (1779–1850). Isaac ben Judah, surnamed Eberst, was born in Offenbach near Frankfurt. After he left his native town in 1799 to become a wandering hazzan and musician, he began to be called, "der Offenbacher," which soon became his official family name. In 1802 he settled in Deutz as a tavern musician, and in 1816 moved to Cologne, where he became a music teacher. The seventh of his nine children, Jacob, was the composer Jacques Offenbach.
OFFENBACH, JACQUES (1819–1880), French composer of comic operas and operettas.
OHEV BEN MEIR HANASI (late 11th–early 12th century), liturgical poet in Spain. Abraham Ibn Daud mentions him in his Sefer ha-Kabbalah together with the poet Moses Ibn Ezra, and refers to him by his Arabic name Ibn Shortmeqas.
OISTRAKH, DAVID FEDOROVICH (1908–1974), Jewish - Russian violin virtuoso. Born in Odessa, Oistrakh studied the violin from the age of five with Stoljarsky, made his first public appearance in 1914.
OPPENHEIMER, J. ROBERT (1904–1967), U.S. physicist. Oppenheimer was in charge of the construction of the first atomic bomb as director of the laboratories at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Born in New York City, Oppenheimer was the son of a cultured and successful businessman, who had immigrated to the U.S. from Germany.
ORNSTEIN, ABRAHAM FREDERICK (1836–1895), London- born pioneer minister in Australia and South Africa. (His surname is sometimes spelled "Ornstien.") After serving the Melbourne Hebrew congregation (1866–75) and being principal of Aria College for training Jewish ministers in Portsmouth, England, Ornstein went to Cape Town in 1882 and headed the congregation there for 13 years.
OSIRIS, DANIEL ILLFA (1825–1908), French philanthropist and art patron, member of a Sephardi family of Bordeaux. He gave large sums for the promotion of technology (radio, telegraphy) and medicine (Institut Pasteur) and bequeathed his valuable art collection to the Louvre. He bought La Malmaison and part of the field of Waterloo and gave them to the French nation.
OTTOLENGHI, GIUSEPPE (1838–1904), Italian general and minister of war. Born in Sabbioneta, Lombardy, Ottolenghi studied at the Turin military academy and fought with the Italian army in the war against Austria in 1859.Ottolenghi was the recipient of many honors, including the silver medal for military valor and the Cross of Savoy.
Pasternak, Boris (1890-1960)Jewish - Russian poet, novelist
Pincus, Gregory (1903-1967) developed birth control pill
Plisetskaya, Maya (1925- ) Russian ballet dancer
Polanski, Roman (1933- Polish, French film - maker
Pincus, Gregory Goodwin- co-invented the combined oral contraceptive pill.
Queen, Ellery was a brainchild of two writers Frederic Dannay (Daniel Nathan 1905 -82) and Manfred Lee (Manfred Lepofsky 1905 - 71)
Baron Edmond de Rothschild, Jew, who invested prodigious effort and means to establish and develop Jewish farm settlement in Palestine at the end of the nineteen and beginning of the twentieth century. [Story of my Life by Moshe Dayan]
Ricardo, David (1772-1823) Founded classical school of economics in England and a member of Parliament. Sephardic Jew. The author of 'The principles of political economy and taxation'
SERENI, Enzo Chaim 1905–1944. War hero. Sereni was born into an old Roman Jewish family and became an enthusiastic Zionist, settling in Palestine in 1927, as one of the founders of Givat Brenner, a kibbutz in the southern coastal plain. In World War II he was the leader of a group of Palestinian Jews who volunteered to be dropped by parachute behind German lines in Europe, to carry out sabotage and rescue operations. Sereni was mistakenly dropped directly onto the German lines in Italy, was captured, deported and shot in Dachau. In 1951 his book on The Sources of Italian Fascism (written in Hebrew) was published. The kibbutz of Netzer Sereni was named after him. His widow, Ada, became active in organizing illegal immigration through Italy. [Who’s Who in Jewish History, 1974]
Sarnoff David(February 27, 1891 – December 12, 1971) was a Russian emigrant, an American businessman and pioneer of American radio and television. Throughout most of his career he led the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in various capacities from shortly after its founding in 1919 until his retirement in 1970. David Sarnoff was born to a Jewish family in Uzlyany, a small town in Russian Empire, the son of Abraham and Leah Sarnoff. Abraham emigrated to the United States and raised funds to bring the family.
Spielberg, Steven
de Spinoza, Baruch (1632 -1677)a Jewish - Iberian - Dutch philosopher. He was first initiated into philosophy, by study of Jewish philosophical texts.
Strauss, Levi Invented fashion - world "jeans"
Steinitz, Wilhelm (1835 - 1900) The first Jewish chess champion.
UDIN, SOPHIE A. (1896–1960), founder of the Women’s Organization for the Pioneer Women of Palestine (Pioneer Women, subsequently Na'amat U.S.A.)
URI (Phoebus) BEN AARON HALEVI (also called Uri Witzenhausen or Witmund; 1625–1715), Hebrew printer. Uri’s father was hazzan of the Neveh Shalom congregation, Amsterdam, and his grandfather Moses Uri ha-Levi, rabbi of Emden and one of the founders of the Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam. Uri established his first press in Amsterdam in 1658 and was active there until 1689
URY, ELSE (1877–1943), bestselling German author. Born in Berlin into a upper-middle-class Jewish family, Ury first received recognition for her story “Studierte Maedel” (“Academic Girls,” 1906), which touched on a controversial topic, as women gained access to universities in Prussia only in 1908. Later she became famous for her children’s book series Nesthaekchen (1918–1925) in ten volumes; she wrote a total of 39 books. Else Ury was murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau in January 1943.
USSISHKIN, ABRAHAM MENAH EM MENDEL (1863– 1941), Zionist leader, member of H? ovevei Zion, and the president of the *Jewish National Fund (JNF). Born in Dubrovno in the district of Mogilev, Russia, Ussishkin moved to Moscow with his family in 1871.
UTITZ, EMIL (1883–1956), philosopher. Born in Prague, Utitz was professor at Halle and Prague. From 1942 to 1945 he was interned in the German concentration camp at Theresienstadt.
UTKIN, JOSEPH PAVLOVICH (1903–1944), Soviet Russian poet. Born in Manchuria, Utkin was the son of an employee of the Russian-owned Chinese Eastern Railroad and was raised in Irkutsk, far from the main centers of Jewish life. Nevertheless, he succeeded in learning enough about Jewish customs and traditions, and acquired a sufficient knowledge of Yiddish, to produce the most important long Russian poem on a Jewish theme yet to appear in Soviet literature.
VAJS, ALBERT (1905–1964), leader of Yugoslav Jewry. Born in Zemun (Semlin), Vajs grew up in a mixed Serbo-Croat, German, and Hungarian cultural milieu, but from his youth he was a Zionist and was greatly influenced by Alexander Licht and the Zemun rabbi H. Urbach. Until 1941 he was a barrister in Belgrade. During World War II he was a Yugoslav officer and was captured by the Germans. After the war he was a member of the State War Crimes Commission in Yugoslavia and the deputy head of the Yugoslav delegation to the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg.
VANDOR, LAJOS (1913–1945), Hungarian poet. His wry and sophisticated verses were published in the 1930s and again in 1989 in a volume titled Egy költö élt itt köztetek ("A Poet Lived Here Amongst You"). Vándor was a victim of the Holocaust.
VÁZSONYI, VILMOS (1868–1926), Hungarian lawyer and politician who was the first Jew in Hungary to become minister of justice.
VENEZIANI, EMMANUEL FELIX (1825–1889), French philanthropist, born in Leghorn (Italy). He became a director of the relief fund of Baron de Hirsch and in 1877 traveled to the Balkans and Bulgaria where he organized relief for Jewish and gentile victims of the Russo-Turkish war. At the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Veneziani and Charles Netter worked for religious liberty in the former Ottoman territories, and in 1880 he was similarly active at the Congress of Madrid on behalf of Moroccan Jewry. In 1882 he and Netter were sent by the Alliance Israélite Universelle to help organize Jewish emigration from Russia. In 1883 Veneziani toured the Jewish settlements in Palestine. In conformity with Hirsch’s views, he advised limiting Russian Jewish immigration there.
VENTURA, Rubino 1792–1858.
Italian soldier of fortune. After serving as a young soldier in Napoleon’s army, Ventura found his way to Persia where he instructed the shah’s forces, with the rank of colonel. He then took service with the maharaja of Lahore, organized and led the local army, and married an Indian princess. He died in Paris, after having lost the wealth he had accumulated in India. [Who’s Who in Jewish History, 1974]VERTOV, DZIGA (originally Denis Kaufman; 1897–1954), Russian pioneer in newsreel-documentary movie director and founder of the “cine-eye, cine-ear” theory. He edited (early 1920s) the newsreel kino-pravda from film taken by cameramen he dispatched throughout the U.S.S.R. After 1924 Vertov headed his own group of movie theorists and filmmakers; his brother and chief cameramen MIKHAIL KAUFMAN went with him. Among his documentaries are One Sixth of the World (1927), Three Songs of Lenin (1932), and Lullaby (1937).
VISHNIAC, ROMAN (1897–1990), photographer. Born in St. Petersburg, Vishniac studied biology at Russian universities. When Berlin University under the Nazis refused to grant his Ph.D. in art, he left Germany and traveled throughout Poland, Austria, Holland, France, Romania, and Czechoslovakia, documenting with his camera the lives of the Jews in the cities and in the hinterlands. He was in Poland taking photographs of the Jewish community when Hitler’s troops marched in. Vishniac was apprehended and sent to a concentration camp in Zbaszyn, Poland. He escaped to France but within a short time he was again incarcerated in another concentration camp, Camp du Richard in Clichy, France. Early in 1941 he managed to escape from Europe and went to the United States. His books include Polish Jews (1947) and Life of the Six Millions (1969) illustrating European Jewish life before and during the Holocaust.
VISSER, LODEWIJK ERNST (1871–1942), Dutch jurist and communal leader. He was born in Amersfoort into an old Dutch Jewish family. Prevented as a Jew from achieving his ambition of becoming a diplomat, Visser was appointed general prosecutor in Amsterdam and in 1903 became a district court judge in Rotterdam.During World War II, Visser opposed the German-appointed "Joodse Raad" (Jewish Council) and refused to accept the degrading identity cards. He tried to intervene for Jews arrested by Germans and participated in general resistance activities, becoming a symbol of Jewish wartime resistance in Holland. His wife and son died in concentration camps. In 1968 a square in front of the Sephardi synagogue in Amsterdam was named after him.
VITAL, HAYYIM BEN JOSEPH (1542–1620), one of the greatest kabbalists. Vital was born in Erez Israel, apparently in Safed. His father, Joseph Vital Calabrese, whose name indicates his origin from Calabria, South Italy, was a well-known scribe in Safed.
VOS, ISIDOR H.J. (1887–1942), Dutch physician and liberal politician. Vos was head of the hygiene department of the Netherlands army headquarters (1914–18), and later an Amsterdam councilor and alderman. From 1928 to 1940 he was a member of the second chamber of the Dutch parliament. Given the opportunity to leave Holland after the German invasion in World War II, he sent his family away but he stayed, and died in a concentration camp.
'He represented the morality of humanity; he represented the free world, the democratic world. He devoted his life to fighting racism, anti-Semitism, Nazism and he really contributed to making a better world for the next generation.'- Israeli President Moshe Katsav
Wiesenthal is often asked to explain his motives for becoming a Nazi hunter. According to Clyde Farnsworth in the New York Times Magazine (February 2, 1964), Wiesenthal once spent the Sabbath at the home of a former Mauthausen inmate, now a well-to-do jewelry manufacturer. After dinner his host said, 'Simon, if you had gone back to building houses, you'd be a millionaire. Why didn't you?" 'You're a religious man,' replied Wiesenthal. 'You believe in God and life after death. I also believe. When we come to the other world and meet the millions of Jews who died in the camps and they ask us, 'What have you done?', there will be many answers. You will say, 'I became a jeweler', Another will say, I have smuggled coffee and American cigarettes', Another will say, 'I built houses', But I will say, 'I didn't forget you'.'
Biography And Photos of Simon WiesenthalWaksman, Selman (1888-1973) Winner of the 1952 Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine. Worked in the field of antibiotics. Was born near Kiev and had praditional Jewish education.
WEISS, YAACOV (1924–1947), Jew executed by the British in Palestine. Weiss was born in Nove Zamky, Czechoslovakia, and joined the local Betar as a boy of ten. In 1945 he was apprehended in attempting to enter Erez Israel "illegally" and was imprisoned in Athlit. On his release he joined the IzL and took part in many of its operations, the last being the break into Acre prison when, with Avshalom Haviv and Meir Nakar, he was captured, sentenced to death, and hanged.
WEIZMANN,Jewish - Russian family, one of whose members, Chaim Weizmann, became the first president of the State of Israel. There were 15 children in the family. OZER (1850–1911), the head of the family, was a timber transporter and the only Jew appointed starosta (head of the village) in Motol. In about 1894 he moved to Pinsk and succeeded in business there. He was a maskil, versed in Judaism, and an early Zionist, as well as representative to the Sixth Zionist Congress (1903).
WEIZMAN, EZER (1924–2005), Israeli air force commander, politician, and seventh president of Israel, member of the Ninth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Knessets.
WELSH, ARTHUR L. (Al; 1881–1912), pioneer U.S. aviator. Welsh, who was born near Kiev, Russia, was taken to the United States in 1890. In 1905 he joined the U.S. Navy, serving for four years. His interest in flying led him to join Orville Wright’s flying class in 1910, and after several months, when he had learned to fly solo, he joined the Wright Brothers Aviation School in Dayton, Ohio, as an instructor. He tutored many important U.S. aviators, including General Henry H. Arnold, U.S. Army Air Force Chief of Staff during World War II. Welsh established many flying records and won a number of trophies, including the George Campbell Cup for altitude at Belmont Park in 1911.
WEST, MAE (1893–1980), U.S. actress, writer, and singer. Born Mary Jane West in Brooklyn, New York, to John P. West and Matilda Delker-Dolger, a German Jewish model and dressmaker, at seven West was winning talent shows.
WIENER, NORBERT (1894–1964), U.S. mathematician; inventor of the science of cybernetics. Born in Columbia, Missouri, Wiener was a child prodigy. He was the son of Leo *Wiener, historian of Yiddish language, literature, and folklore and professor of Slavic languages, who made incessant intellectual demands on his son (and who did not reveal their Jewishness – a fact discovered by Norbert Wiener only when he was in his teens). Wiener began to read scientific books at four, and by seven was familiar with the theories of natural scientists.
WIGNER, EUGENE PAUL (1902–1995), Nobel laureate in physics. Wigner was born in Budapest and was one of a small number of extraordinarily talented Hungarian-born physicists who contributed to the transformation of Newtonian physics. Wigner obtained his doctorate from the Technische Hochschule (later Universitaet) in Berlin in 1925, where his contacts with physicists of equal standing were established at colloquia of the German Physical Society.
WILLSTAETTER, RICHARD (1872–1942), German organic chemist and Nobel laureate. Willstaetter, who was born in Karlsruhe, became professor at Munich in 1902, and three years later professor at the Technische Hochschule in Zurich. In March 1939 the Gestapo ransacked his house and ordered him to leave Germany. He went to Locarno, Switzerland, where he died.
WING ATE, Charles Orde 1903–44. British soldier and Zionist. Wingate
was a brilliant and unorthodox soldier. The men he led always worshipped him
and would follow him anywhere. His superior officers tended to dismiss him as
insubordinate and unbalanced. To the Palestine Jews he was a friend and a
legend, sometimes called ‘the Lawrence of Judea’, after his distant kinsman
T.E.LAWRENCE, whom he resembled in some ways. Wingate was born in
India of non-conformist missionary parents, and had an intense attachment to the
Bible, a copy of which he always carried with him.
In 1936 he was posted to Palestine as a captain, at the beginning of the Arab
rebellion. He spent time in the kibbutzim, and gained the confidence of the
Jewish Agency leaders. He obtained permission from the British army to train
groups of selected Haganah men for the protection of the oil pipeline from
Kirkuk, Iraq, to Haifa, that was constantly being sabotaged by Arab raiders. The
groups became known as Wingate’s Night Squads and included such future Israel
commanders as Yigal ALLON and Moshe DAYAN. Wingate taught them the
elements of speed, surprise, subterfuge and night attack that were to have a
lasting effect on the outlook and methods of the Haganah and later the Israel
army.
In 1939, he was transferred back to England because he was identified with
the Zionist struggle and openly critical of the authorities. During World War II,
he played a notable part in the Ethiopian campaign and entered liberated Addis
Ababa at the side of Haile Selassie. In 1944 he organized and commanded the
famous Chindit irregulars that operated in the Burmese jungle behind the
Japanese lines, and was given the rank of major-general. He was killed in a plane
crash. [Who’s Who in Jewish History, 1974
WISSOTZKY, KALONYMUS ZE'EV (1824–1904),Jewish merchant, philanthropist, and supporter of Hibbat Zion. Born in Zhagare (Kovno province), Wissotzky attended yeshivot and then tried his hand at agriculture. Having failed, he became a businessman and, in 1858, he moved to Moscow, where he established the famous tea firm that bears his name (Ah ad Ha-Am was at one time manager of its London branch). He became a wealthy man and took an interest in public affairs, especially by subsidizing charitable institutions and causes. Wissotzky was one of the earliest adherents and supporters of the Hibbat Zion movement in Russia.
WITTENBERG, YIZHAK (Itzig; 1907–1943), first commander of the Jewish fighters organization in the Vilna ghetto (Fareynegte Partizaner Organizatsye, United Partisan Organization, FPO).
WOLFFSOHN, DAVID (1856–1914), second president of the World Zionist Organization.
XIMENES, SIR DAVID (1776–1848), English army officer. Born in London, into a distinguished Jewish family, Ximenes joined the British army and served in North America. He returned to Britain in 1805 and commanded the 62nd Regiment in Ireland. He later fought in Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Ximenes was knighted in 1832 and retired with the rank of lieutenant general in 1847. He had no direct connection with the Jewish community.
YA'ISH, BARUCH BEN ISAAC IBN (15th century), philosopher and translator. Probably born in Spain, Ibn Ya'ish lived and died in Italy. He had a good knowledge of Hebrew, Latin, and Arabic. Ibn Ya'ish wrote a Hebrew commentary in ten chapters on Avicenna's De Medicamentibus Cordialibus (On Cardiac Remedies) entitled Be'ur la-Sammim ha- Libbiy yim, in which he quotes Aristotle and Averroes (Bodl, Ms. Mich., Add. 16). He translated Aristotles Metaphysics into Hebrew from the Latin.
YAKIR, YONAH (d. 1937), Soviet general. Born in Kishinev, Yakir commanded the 45t? division of the Red Army during the Civil War and was later promoted to general with command of the Kiev district. He was one of the founders of the Red Army armored corps and in 1937 was made military commander of the Ukraine and a member of the Supreme Military Council. Shortly afterward Yakir was arrested on charges of spying and executed. He was posthumously rehabilitated in 1945 and a postage stamp was issued in 1954 in his memory.
ZACUTO, ABRAHAM BEN SAMUEL (1452–c. 1515), astronomer and historian. His ancestors were French Jewish exiles who had come to Castile in 1306.
ZADIKOW, ARNOLD (1884–1943), German sculptor and medalist, killed by the Nazis.
ZAM, ZVI HERZ (1835–1915), Russian - Jewish soldier; the only Jewish officer in the czarist army in the 19th century. Born in Goren grod, Zam was taken from his home when he was 12 and trained at the *Cantonist military institute at Tomsk. He was posted to an infantry regiment, and, following the introduction of national conscription in 1874, was permitted to enter the cadets’ school. He rose to become vice captain (shtabskapitan) but was placed in command of the worst company in his regiment at the orders of the war minister, who expressed surprise that a Jew who had remained faithful to his religion should serve as an officer. Within a year Zam had made his company the best in the regiment, but not until 1893, just before his retirement after 41 years in the czarist army, was he promoted to full captain. Zam took an active part in Jewish affairs and was instrumental in providing synagogue facilities for Jewish soldiers.
ZARZAL ZARZAB, ABRAHAM IBN (14t century), Spanish physician and astrologer. Zarzal was favored by Sultan Muhammad IV of Granada.
ZASLOFSKY, MAX ("Slats"; 1925–1985), U.S. basketball player and coach, member of the NBA's Silver Anniversary Top 25 Team. A native of Brooklyn, New York, Zaslofsky was an all-scholastic player at Thomas Jefferson High School. Zaslofsky was named First Team All-NBA each of his four years with Chicago.
ZEID, ALEXANDER (1886–1938), pioneer of the Second Jewish Aliyah and one of the founders of the Ha-Shomer defense organization. Born in Balagansk, Siberia, at the age of 13 Zeid settled in Vilna, where he joined the Zionist labor movement. In 1904 he was one of the first pioneers of the Second Aliyah to reach Erez Israel.
ZEMACH, NAHUM (1887–1939), theatrical director, founder of Habimah. Born in Volkovysk, he grew up in Poland and was a successful businessman in Moscow before devoting himself to literature and the theater. In 1912 in Bialystok (with Menahem Gnessin), he assembled a group of Hebrew-speaking actors who performed Dymov's The Eternal Wanderer, and in the following year he presented the play in Vienna to the members of the 11t? Zionist Congress.
ZIEGFELD, FLORENZ (1869–1932), U.S. showman. Ziegfeld, born in Chicago, started his career at the Chicago World Fair, 1893, and staged his first production in 1896 in New York. His star was Anna Held, whom he had brought from Europe and later married, and he publicized the show with front-page advertising, a device which subsequently became his hallmark. In 1907, after a visit to Paris, he launched the Ziegfeld Follies and presented new editions periodically until 1931.
ZÖLD, MÁRTON (1865–?), Austro-Hungarian general. Born in Hungary, Zöld passed out of the military academy in Budapest and was seconded to the infantry. In 1914 he commanded a battalion against Serbia and Montenegro, and was awarded a Hungarian knighthood for valor on the Russian front. In the same year he commanded a regiment on the Italian front. After the establishment of an independent Hungarian state, Zöld was made a full general. He was active in Jewish affairs.