last updated 28 Jan 2024
Jewish accomplishments:
Note: 39% of the worlds 15 million Jews live in the US.
The people named below are a very small fraction of well known Jews.
There is no ranking other than people I have heard of and I am not particularly knowledgeable in any of the categories listed below.
A transition from an agrarian society to trades requiring literacy.
The Chosen Few: How education shaped Jewish history 70-1492, by Maristella Botticini , Zvi Eckstein, 2012
A New Explanation of Jewish Success | PBS
2 trends after the fall of the temple in 70CE.
- The growth and spread of literacy among the predominantly rural Jewish population.
- A slow but significant process of conversion out of Judaism (mainly into Christianity) which, caused a significant fall in the Jewish population — from 5.5 million circa 65 to roughly 1.2 million circa 650.
Between 750 and 900, almost all the Jews in Mesopotamia and Persia — nearly 75 percent of the world’s remaining 1.2 million Jews — left agriculture, moved to the cities and towns of the newly established Abbasid Empire, and entered myriad skilled occupations that provided higher earnings than as farmers.
Between 750 and 900, almost all the Jews in Mesopotamia and Persia — nearly 75 percent of the world’s remaining 1.2 million Jews — left agriculture, moved to the cities and towns n search of worldwide opportunities in crafts, trade, commerce, moneylending, banking, finance, and medicine.
Many Jews are not practicing Jews, but Practicing doesn't have a good definition.
30% keep some form of Kosher eating.
All main line churches are declining in the US and Judaism is no different.
According to the Pew Research Center 2,4% of US adults are Jewish.
1.7% jews by religion
0.6% Jews of no religion
1.1% Jewish background
0.8% Other religion
Corporate management:
In Germany:
In the early twentieth century, a dense corporate network was created among the large German corporations ("Germany Inc."). About 16% of the members of this corporate network were of Jewish background. At the center of the network (big linkers) about 25% were Jewish. The percentage of Jews in the general population was less than 1% in 1914.
America:
Jews In The Corporate Establishment; Board Rooms, Clubs and Identity | NY Times 1983
Are Jews excluded from boardrooms and elite social clubs? Or have they made it?
"If you look at most of the commercial banks you will not find a Jewish name at all, maybe a rarity here and there of late, but almost none,'' said Simon H. Rifkind, 81, a partner in the Chicago law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, who has sat on several corporate boards. "
There is an opinion that non-Jewish business leaders are willing to promote Jewish executives once they have established themselves elsewhere. In the Clubs.
Elite social clubs such as the Somerset in Boston, the Piedmont Driving in Atlanta and the Pacific Union in San Francisco are considered an important part of the corporate community.
There still are not very many Jews in these clubs.
Irving S. Shapiro, chairman and chief executive officer of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company from 1974 to 1981,
W. Michael Blumenthal, 57, now chairman of Burroughs,
Science:
Between 1901 and 2022, the Nobel Prize has been awarded to more than 900 individuals and organizations. At least 213 (24%) of them have been to people who are believed to be Jewish or raised Jewish.
Jewish winners of the Nobel Prize
Chemistry: 36 (19% of total)
Economics: 38 (41% of total)
Literature: 16 (13% of total)
Peace: 9 (8% of total)
Physics: 56 (25% of total)
Physiology or Medicine: 59 (26% of total)
Here is just a few.
NL - Nobel laureate
- Albert Einstein (NL) - Theory of Relativity
- Rosalind Franklin - DNA - X-ray crystallographer.
Her work was critical for the discovery of the DNA double helix, for which Francis Crick, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins got the Nobel Prize after Franklin's death.
- John von Neumann - Mathematician (quantum mechanics), physicist, computer scientist, engineer.
The lasting importance of the work on general equilibria and the methodology of fixed point theorems is underscored by the awarding of the Nobel Prize to many others who used his work.
- Max Born (NL) - Quantum mechanics
- J. Robert Oppenheimer - Theoretical physics, Nuclear physics
director of the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II.
- Leonid Hurwicz (NL) - Econometrics, foundations of mechanism design theory.
- Gertrude B. Elion (NL) - Method for producing drugs
- Ada Yonath (NL) - Crystallographer best known for her pioneering work on the structure of ribosomes.
- Paul A. Samuelson (NL) - Economics
- Claudia Goldin (NL) - Economics - Women's earnings and labour market participation
- Alan Rabinowitz - Called the "Indiana Jones of Wildlife Protection" by Time.
Politics:
American Jews in Politics | Wikipedia>
Many early American German-Jewish immigrants to the United States tended to be politically conservative, but the wave of Eastern European Jews, starting in the early 1880s, were generally more liberal or left-wing, and eventually became the political majority.
- Madeleine K. Albright, Secretary of State
- Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State.
1971, Kissinger became the first high-ranking US official to visit Communist China. His secret meeting with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai paved the way for then President Richard Nixon’s breakthrough trip the following year meeting with Chairman Mao Zedong and extended talks with Zou.
1974 kissinger pioneered the policy of détente with the soviet union.
In 1977 Kissinger was instrumental in making progress in Arab Israeli peace when he got President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt to travel to Jerusalem in November 1977 and in a speech at the Israeli Knesset (parliament), addressed the Israeli people with a call for reconciliation and peace.. This led to the Camp David Accords and ultimately a 1979 peace agreement between Egypt and Israel shifting the balance of power in the Middle East.
SeeHenry Kissinger under people for some controversial issues.
- Alan Greenspan Fed Chair
- Janet Yellen Secretary of the Treasury, Fed Chair
- Steven T. Mnuchin Secretary of the Treasury
- Felix Frankfurter - Supreme Court Justice 1939-1962
He adhered to judicial restraint during an era where conservative justices wielded the judicial power. Received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
- Arthur Goldberg - Supreme Court Justice 1965-1968. Ambassador to the United Nations.
- Henry Morgenthau, Jr. Secretary of the Treasury (Personal friend of FDR)
- James R. Schlesinger, Secretary of Defense
- Dianne Feinstein, Senator California
- Barbara Boxer, Senator California
- Barry Goldwater, Senator Arizona
- Frank Lautenberg, Senator New Jersey
- Al Franken, Senator Minnesota
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court Justice
- Bernie Sanders, Senator Vermont
- Joe Lieberman, Senator Connecticut
- Chuck Schumer, Senator New York
See Jewish United States senators for many more
See What American Jews Fear Most | Chuck Schumer Opinion Essay, NY Times Nov 29,2023
Many more: Jewish Political Milestones in the United States ,| JewishVirtualLibrary
Music:
This is a gigantic list. Here is just a fraction:
- Composers
- Felix Mendelssohn
- Irving Berlin
- George Gershwin
- Ira Gershwin
- Oscar Hammerstein II
- Leonard Bernstein
- Richard Rodgers
- Gustav Mahler
- René Leibowitz
- Singers - Writers
- Bob Dylan - 2016 Nbel Prize in Literature
- Barbara Streisand
- Paul Simon
- Art Garfunkel
- Billy Joel
- Leonard Cohen
- Neil Diamond
- Carly Simon
- Carole King
- Judy Garland
- Bette Midler
- Burt Bacharach
- Cass Elliot
- Peter Yarrow
- Arlo Guthrie
- Dinah Shore
- Jim Croce
- Band leader
- Benny Goodman
- Piano
- Arthur Rubinstein
- Vladimir Horowitz
- Daniel Barenboim
- Victor Borge
- Violin
- Isaac Stern
- Itzhak Perlman
- Joshua Bell
More
Entertainers:
- Harrison Ford
- Gwyneth Paltrow
- Dustin Hoffman
- Goldie Hawn
- Kate Hudson
-
- Comedians
- Woody Allen
- Groucho Marx
- George Burns
- Jerry Lewis
- Jack Benny
- Jerry Seinfeld
- Rodney Dangerfield
- Adam Sandler
- Ben stiller
- Bea Arthur
- Roseanne Barr
- Madeline Kahn
- Gilda Radner
- Billy Crystal
- Jackie Mason
- Mel Brooks
- Carl Reiner
- American Jewish humor
- TV & Film Producers
- Steven Spielberg
- Norman Lear
- Stanley Kubrick
TV and Radio Hosts:
- Jon Stewart
- Joan Rivers
- Howard Stern
- Bill Maher
- Katie Couric
- Barbara Walters
- Al Franken
- Jerry Springer
- Matt Lauer
- Geraldo Rivera
- Bernard Meltzer
- Bill Nye
- Carl Sagan
- David Brooks - From a Jewish family but now a Christian
- Connie Chung - Converted to Judaism after marrying Maury Povich
- Chris Berman
- Suze Orman
- Jim Cramer
- Al Michaels
- Marv Albert
- Howard Cosell
- Ira Glass
- Ira Flatow
- Ted Koppel
- Terry Gross
- Peter Sagal
Business:
- Isidor and Nathan Straus, become the sole owners of Macy’s in 1896.
- Larry Ellison Co-founder of Oricle $102 billion
- Larry Page Co-founder Google of $ 85 billion. ...
- Sergey Brin. Co-Founder of Goggle $82 billion
- Steve Ballmer CEO of Microsoft from 2000-2014 $79 billion
- Michael Bloomberg. Co-founder of financial and media company Bloombert LP
politicial - New York City Mayor for 3 terms, philanthropist $79 billion
- Michael Dell. Founder of Dell technologies $52 billion
- Mark Zuckerberg. Founder of Meta (Facebook) $43 billion
Finance:
- Marcus Goldman, founder of Goldman, Sachs & Co
- .Henry, Emanuel and Mayer Lehman, founders of Lehman Brothers
- Abraham Kuhn and Solomon Loeb, founders of the banking firm Kuhn, Loeb and Co.
- Jacob Schiff, Loeb’s son-in-law and a major American finacier
Success in the wrong direction:
Jews who pushed success a little too far and ended up in jail or other trouble
Just to show that Jews are no different than any other ethnic group in many ways.
- Bernie Madoff - Investing Ponzi scheme $65 billion
- Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and former CEO of FTX,cryptocurrency currency company $800 billion
- Michael Milken - Junk bond guru
- Charles Kushner - Real estate developer (Father of Trump's son-in-law)
- The Sackler Family owners of Purdue Pharma (OxyContin's manufacturer) which went thru bankruptcy , did not go to jail, but were caught up in the opioid crisis. They were not charged with any crime, but in a settlement the court orderd the Sackler family to pay $6 billion—more than half of their estimated wealth— to combat the opioid crisis.
- Arnaud Mimran - French businessman - associate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
- Jeffry Epstein
- When I searched for well known Jews who spent time in jail, a bunch of rabbis showed up.
- Elizabeth Holmes - Theranos Scandal - She is descended from Charles Fleischmann Jewish Hungarian-American manufacturer of yeas who founded Fleischmann Yeast Company.
- Rabbis who ran afoul of the law.
Here's a couple.
Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto
Rabbi Leib Glanz
Mendel Epstein
Other professions:
There are many other areas of endeavor where Jewish success outnumbers their fraction of the population.
Advertising and public relations., Cosmetics, Financial services, Food, Manufacturing and distribution, Music industry, Newspapers and publishing, Real estate.
Respect
In a 2023 survey on opinion of religions PEW Research found Americans had the most positive view of Jews.
See American Views on Religions
I agree:
Personally I counted 12 friends who are Jewish. I knew/know them from work, volunteering, tennis, skiing, ...
I would rank them much higher than my largest group of religious friends, evangelical christians.
I just happened to end up in and became active in evangelical Presbyterian churches by circumstances not choice.
Links:
Why Jews are disproportionally successful | Yetnews