Index
There are many stereotypes of Jewish people. Some stereotypes are good and some are bad. The pervading characteristics that always seem to stand out in Jewish people are their intelligence and creativity. One measure of the success of the Jews is the fame that some members of this ethnic group have acquired in religion, finances, science, and the arts. "Fame" is a widespread popular recognition of the achievements of a person that transcend cultural barriers.
Who is a Jew? Jews originated in the Land of Israel, where they developed a monotheistic religion called Judaism. Traditionally, Jewishness passes from mother to child, but it can also be based on the practice of Judaism as a faith, or by the practice of Jewish customs and traditions. Several times in the history of the world, it has been mortally dangerous to be Jewish, and many Jews hid their faith and ancestry to survive persecution. Two such periods were from the 15th to the 18th century during the Spanish Inquisition, and in 1938-1945 during the Nazi Holocaust of World War II. Sometimes the term "Hebrews" is used to distinguish the Jews that lived before the birth of Jesus from Jews that lived afterward. The modern Hebrew language spoken in Israel today is an adaptation of the ancient language of the Torah with many neologisms of European and Arabic origin.
 The Hebrew Alphabet |
These are the most well-known Jewish holidays:
 The Kaaba in Mecca |
Abraham (Prophet Ibrahim)
Abraham is thought to have lived around 1500 BC. He is considered
the father of monotheism and a role model for his rejection of idol worship.
Abraham is regarded as the founding patriarch of the Israelites
whom God chose to bless. He was the principal Biblical patriarch, and he
is a central figure in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam which
are sometimes referred to as the "Abrahamic religions"
because Abraham is in their holy books and plays a role in their beliefs.
In Islam, Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) is the friend of Allah and the father of the Prophets
Ismail (Ishmael) and Ishaq (Isaac); he is also one of the ancestors of the Prophet Muhammad.
Each year, about two million Muslims journey to Mecca in a spiritual pilgrimage known as the Hajj
to perform religious rituals around the Kaaba which is said to be the first shrine built by Abraham.
The children of Abraham mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible are: Ishmael whose mother Hagar was an Egyptian handmaid (Genesis 16:15), Isaac from Abraham's first wife Sarah (Genesis 21:3), and another six children: Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah from Abraham's second wife Keturah (Genesis 25:1-2).
 Charlton Heston as Moses |
Moses
Moses is thought to have lived approximately in the 13th century BC.
He is recognized as the leader who brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt
and provided them with a code of conduct known as the
Ten Commandments. The commandments are a list of religious and moral rules which,
according to religious tradition, were written by God and given to Moses on Mount Sinai
in the form of two stone tablets. They feature prominently in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
The Ten Commandments are listed in two books of the Bible: Exodus 20:2–17 and Deuteronomy 5:6–21.
Moses asked the Israelites to celebrate their freedom from Egypt every year during Passover by eating unleavened bread (Exodus 12:17-19).
 The Head of Christ by Warner Sallman |
Jesus of Nazareth
Jesus was a Jewish teacher who used parables to illustrate
important ethical ideas.
The main sources of information regarding Jesus' life are the
Gospels of the New Testament by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Jesus is the central figure of Christianity. He is commonly referred to as Jesus Christ,
where "Christ" is a Greek title meaning "Anointed One" corresponding to the Hebrew "Messiah".
Our modern calendar is based on the date of birth of Jesus. "AD" or Anno Domini
defines an epoch starting with the birth of Jesus, whereas "BC" refers to
the era Before Christ. Christmas is the Christian holiday commemorating the birth of Jesus.
Churches founded on the belief that Jesus is the Messiah promised in the Old Testament include the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Protestant, Pentecostal, Episcopalian, Anglican, and Mormon churches. There are hundreds of different Christian denominations.
Baruch Spinoza (November 24, 1632 – February 21, 1677)
Baruch Spinoza was born in Amsterdam, Holland in a community of Portuguese Jews of Sephardic Jewish descent.
He worked as a lens grinder and produced lenses for telescopes that were some of the most important
scientific instruments of that era.
His writings on rationalism, many of which were published posthumously, reveal substantial mathematical training.
Spinoza's most influential work was his Ethics, a work that established him as one of the great
rationalists of 17th-century philosophy.
He is recognized as a founder of modern biblical criticism, and as having laid the groundwork for the 18th century Enlightenment.
Spinoza was critical of the Talmud and took positions contrary to normative Jewish belief.
In 1656 he was excommunicated from the Jewish community for his unorthodox conception of God.
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Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 – April 18, 1955)
Albert Einstein was a German-born scientist who made significant advances in theoretical
physics, quantum theory, and statistical mechanics.
Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity challenged the concepts about space and time
that had been established over two centuries earlier by Isaac Newton.
He is most famous for his formulation of the special and general
theories of relativity, specifically for his formula of the relationship between mass and energy:
Einstein was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect in 1905 where he showed that light behaves like particles. These units of electromagnetic radiation are now called photons.
 The Praying Jew by Marc Chagall |
Marc Chagall (July 7, 1887 - March 28, 1985) was a Jewish painter born in Vitebsk, Belarus. He was the oldest of nine children. Chagal started studying painting in 1906 and moved to St. Petersburg one year later. He lived for a few years in Paris in order to be near the art community of the Montparnasse district, but returned to Vitebsk in 1914. After the Russian revolution, he moved to Moscow in 1920 and back to Paris in 1923 where he became a French citizen. The memories of his Jewish upbringing and Biblical themes reflecting his Jewish heritage are portrayed in many of his paintings. He is associated with the modern movements after impressionism. Chagall died at the age of 97 in Saint-Paul de Vence, France.
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Alan Greenspan (March 6, 1926 -)
Alan Greenspan was born in New York City from Hungarian Jewish parents. He studied clarinet at
The Juilliard School and later played the saxophone with Stan Getz. Greenspan then studied
economics at New York University (NYU) and eventually became the Chairman of the Board of Governors
of the Federal Reserve of the United States from 1987 to 2006.
As chief economist, Greenspan was famous for giving speeches that had complex sentence structures and were hard to understand due to their technical content. Greenspan's views on the economy were highly regarded by Wall Street, and the markets often reacted to his speeches. In 1996, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan asked "Clearly, sustained low inflation implies less uncertainty about the future, and lower risk premiums imply higher prices of stocks and other earning assets. We can see that in the inverse relationship exhibited by price/earnings ratios and the rate of inflation in the past. But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade?". The Internet bubble which had sparked Greenspan's concern finally burst in January 2000 and Internet and tech stocks prices continued to drop for over two years.
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Woody Allen (December 1, 1935 - )
Allen Stewart Konigsberg, aka Woody Allen, got his nickname "Woody" because he played the
clarinet which is a woodwind instrument. He has won many awards as a
film director, writer, actor, musician, and comedian.
Allen has directed and has acted in the majority of his movies.
Allen derives his inspiration from literature, philosophy, psychology,
and New York City, where he has lived all his life.
His initial film was "What's New, Pussycat?", starring Peter Sellers in 1965. Woody Allen has had 14 Academy Award nominations for best screenplay and six nominations for best director. He won the Academy Award in 1977 for "Annie Hall", and in 1986 for "Hannah and Her Sisters".
Brief Glossary of Jewish terms:
The title of the traditional Hebrew folk song Hava Nagila means "Let us rejoice". This song is the international stereotype of Jewish music and is played at Jewish weddings, parties, and festive occasions.
Jewish Actors and Actresses:
Cary Grant -- Classical good looks and humor
Alicia Silverstone -- Actress - Clueless, The Crush, The Babysitter, Batman
Barbara Streisand -- Singer and actress winner of two Oscars, four Emmys, nine Golden Globes, and other awards.
Mandy Patinkin -- Emmy & Tony award-winning actor, 'Dr Jeffrey Geiger' on TV's Chicago Hope
Harrison Ford -- Actor: 'Raiders of the Lost Ark', 'Star Wars', ' American Graffiti', 'Witness', 'The Fugitive'
Gwyneth Paltrow -- Oscar winner
William Shatner -- Captain James T. Kirk on the original 'Star Trek'
Natalie Portman -- Actress, Queen Amidala in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
Al Jolson -- famous entertainer. Starred in the first talking movie
Winona Ryder -- Star of films like Heathers, Girl Interrupted, Little Women, Beetlejuice
Noah Wyle -- Actor, 'Dr John Carter' on TV's ER
Michael Landon -- Little Joe Cartwright on Bonanza
Mark Frankel -- Actor in 'Sisters' and 'Fortune Hunter'
Sarah Jessica Parker -- Acress in 'Sex and the City', 'LA Story'
Seth Green -- televison actor, Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, Family Guy.
Robert Downey, Jr. -- actor in 'Less Than Zero,' 'Chaplin,' 'Short Cuts.'
Paul Newman -- Academy Award winning actor and philanthropist
Musicians:
Itzhak Perlman -- Grammy-winning Violin soloist
Max Weinberg -- Drummer for Springstein and musical director for Conan O'Brien
Isaac Stern -- Violin virtuoso
George Gershwin -- American composer of many vocal and theatrical works written in collaboration with
his older brother, lyricist Ira Gershwin.
Jascha Heifetz -- Violinist
Yehudi Menuhin -- Violinist
Herb Alpert -- Leader and trumpeter of Tijuana Brass
Stan Getz -- Jazz Tenor Sax player most famous for The Girl from Ipanema
Scientists:
Albert Einstein -- One of the most famous and influential scientists since Isaac Newton
Carl Sagan -- astronomer and popular science author; made book and TV series 'Cosmos'
Niels Bohr -- Nobel prize-winning Physicist: atomic structure
Roald Hoffmann -- Nobel prize winner in Chemistry: field of electronic structures
Fritz Haber -- winner of the Nobel Prize of Chemistry in 1918, for the synthesis of ammonia from its elements
Edward Teller -- Physicist, father of the hydrogen bomb
Leo Szilard -- Physicist, proved the possiblily of a nuclear chain reaction in 1933.
Jonas Salk -- Developed the first polio vaccine.
Business Professionals:
Milton Hershey -- Hershey's Chocolate founder
Michael Dell -- Founder of Dell Computer
Larry Ellison -- Founder and CEO of Oracle
Alan Greenspan -- Federal Reserve Chairman under Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush
Steve Ballmer -- CEO of Microsoft and the richest Jew in the world
Sir James Goldsmith -- financier and banker who amongst others has taken over Goodyear.
George Soros -- millionaire philanthropist who has donated millions to aid Eastern Europe.
Fashion designers:
Calvin Klein -- Famous Clothes Designer
Ralph Lauren -- (Ralph Lipshitz) world famous fashion designer
Levi Strauss -- Inventor of Blue Jeans
Kenneth Cole -- Fashion Designer who's married to Mario Cuomo's daughter
Comedians:
Jerry Lewis -- A comedian who teamed up with Dean Martin
Marcel Marceau -- The most famous mime in history
Jerry Seinfeld -- Stand up comedia, TV show Seinfeld, American Express commercials
Milton Berle -- Comedian who pioneered comedy/variety on television
Jack Benny -- Reknowned radio and TV comic
Directors and producers:
Steven Spielberg -- Director of films such as Saving Private Ryan & Schindler's List, Jurassic Park, E.T.,
Stanley Kubrick -- Director of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Spartacus
Mel Brooks -- Film director, producer, actor: Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein
Woody Allen -- Film Maker/Actor: Annie Hall, Bullets Over Broadway, Mighty Aphrodite, Antz
Roman Polanski -- Director, screenwriter, actor: Rosemary's Baby, Macbeth, Chinatown, Tess
Ben Stiller -- Director/Actor: Seinfeld, SNL, Reality Bites, Something About Mary, The Cable Guy
Aaron Spelling -- Produced Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place...
Oliver Stone -- Popular Director: The Doors, J.F.K., Heaven And Earth, Natural Born Killers
Artists:
Frida Kahlo -- Mexican artist famous for vivid, surrealist self-portraits. Married to Diego Rivera.
Marc Chagall -- Painter, designer and graphic artist
Modigliani -- Artist whose elongated faces are reminiscent of African masks
Camille Pissarro -- Father of Impressionism
Words and word clusters related to Famous Jewish People:
Jewish Actors,
Jewish Scientists,
Land of Israel,
Jewish People,
Chosen People,
Jewish History,
Jewish Heritage,
Jewish Holidays,
Jewish Recipes,
Kosher Food,
Judaica Collection,
