Archive for the ‘JFacts’ Category

Tootsie Rolls, Bazooka Bubble Gum, Abba Zabba, Easter Peeps and Ring Pops are all iconic American candies, but did you know they were all created by Jewish people? Over a century ago, most candies were generic penny candy you could pick out of a barrel or in a jar at your local five and dime. Most of these sweets were created and distributed by Jewish immigrants who made the inexpensive confections in their homes. The old adage that “candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker” may sound great, but many a turn-of-the-century Jewish immigrant would beg to differ. Most Jewish immigrants came to America with nothing but the shirt on their back and a wealth of entrepreneurial spirit, so many were drawn to selling candy because the ingredients were inexpensive and they could use trial and error to perfect their recipes without wasting large amounts of money on costly experimentation.

The Tootsie Roll was created by Austrian immigrant Leo Hirshfield who opened a candy store in New York City in 1896. His most successful penny candy was a chewy cross between fudge and caramel that he named after his daughter Clara, affectionately known as “Tootsie.” Today, the company is still ran by Hirshfield’s descendants and Tootsie Roll Industries churns out over 62 million of these sweet little barrels of joy every day!

Sam Born arrived in the U.S. from Russia in 1910 and invented the process for creating the hard chocolate coating on Eskimo Pies, a machine that inserts sticks into lollipops and a chocolate-sprinkle producing machine that creates Jimmies (named after the machine’s operator). Born, along with his brothers-in-law Irv and Jack Shaffer, would go on to create Mike and Ike candies, Hot Tamales and Easter Peeps. Other notable Jewish confectioners include Abraham, Ira, Philip and Joseph Shorin whose company, Topps, led to the creation of Topps Baseball Cards, Ring Pops, Push Pops, Bazooka Bubble Gum and comic book icon Bazooka Joe.

Today, due to the hard work and entrepreneurial spirit of immigrants from Old World Europe, prominent Jewish families have become central to the candy trade. Not only has this resulted in world-recognized brands and generations of wealth, but millions and millions of happy children and more than a few unnecessary visits to the dentist.

Bookmark this:

Ayn Rand, author, screenwriter and the originator of the philosophical theory of Objectivism is, in fact, Jewish. Rand was born Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum in 1905 to Zinovy Zacharovich and Anna Borisovna Rosenbaum, largely non-practicing middle-class Jews in St. Petersburg, Russia.  At a young age she experienced Bolshevik tyranny when her father’s pharmacy was confiscated by the Soviets. In an attempt to free themselves from oppression, the family temporarily fled to Crimea and later returned to St. Petersburg. Rand immigrated to the United States in 1926 and after a chance meeting with film director Cecil B. DeMille, she landed a job as film extra and later, a script reader. Rand’s first literary success came in 1932 with the sale of her anti-Communist screenplay, Red Pawn, to Universal Studios.

Rand’s first major success came with the publication of 1943’s The Fountainhead. Both a romantic and philosophical novel, The Fountainhead traces the story of architect Howard Roark and his struggle against those who attempt to live through others. The novel became a worldwide success and continues to sell about 100,000 copies a year. After the success of her novel, Rand begin to engage in political activism, speaking in favor of individualism and free-market capitalism.

In 1957, Rand published her 1,100 page magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, which advocates the core tenets of her theory of Objectivism. The plot involves a dystopian United States in which the creative industrialists, scientists and artists go on strike and retreat to a hideaway where they build an independent, free economy. Atlas Shrugged became another worldwide hit and continues to sell over 200,000 copies annually. In her later years, Rand formed “The Collective,” a group of intellectuals, including Alan Greenspan, that met to discuss philosophy and promote Objectivism. Rand died of heart failure in 1982 but her philosophy and writings have influenced generations of prominent minds including philosophers, economists, historians, artists and politicians.

Bookmark this:

In light of the current J.J. Abrams cinematic reboot of the Star Trek franchise, the JFacts team decided to dig a little deeper and see what impact Jewish people have had on this ever-evolving cultural phenomenon. First and foremost, you should know that three members of Star Trek: The Original Series (or TOS in geekier circles) are, in fact, Jewish.

William Shatner as Captain James Tiberius Kirk

Before negotiating the terms of air travel and hotel stays for Priceline.com, Shatner negotiated through space and time as Captain of the USS Enterprise. Born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Shatner’s grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Poland and Hungry. Shatner’s grandfather was born Wolf Schattner and later anglicized the family name to Shatner. After the initial 1966-69 run of Star Trek, Shatner reprised the role of James Kirk in seven subsequent Star Trek films,starred as the title role in T.J. Hooker and won an Emmy for his performance as attorney Denny Crane in Boston Legal.

Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock

Leonard Nimoy was born in 1931 in Boston, Massachusetts to Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants from Izyaslav, Ukraine. After starring in over 50 television and film roles, Nimoy was cast as Mr. Spock in Star Trek and received three Emmy nominations for playing the complicated half-human, half-Vulcan character. Nimoy would go on to star in seven subsequent Star Trek film adaptations, including 2009’s Star Trek, and directtwo of the films, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and the most successful of the original film adaptations, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Nimoy also directed the 1986 hit comedy Three Men and Baby starring Tom Selleck, Ted Danson and Steve Guttenberg.

Walter Koenig as Pavel Checkov

Koenig was born in 1936 in Chicago, Illinois to Jewish immigrants from Russia who upon coming to the United States shortened their last name from Konigsberg to Koenig. Koenig was added to the cast of Star Trek because of his resemblance to The Monkees star Davy Jones, in an attempt to woo a younger audience. The character was also added because of an article in Pravda (the central publication of the Soviet Union), which complained about the lack of Russians in Star Trek. After the run of the initial television series, Koenig rejoined the cast of Star Trek for six subsequent films and was a frequent cast member n the TV series Babylon 5. Koening stood as best men for Trek cast mate George Takei (Sulu) in his highly-publicized 2008 wedding to Brad Altman.

The Vulcan Salute

One of the most famous lines in Star Trek is the Vulcan salutation, “Live long and prosper,” which is usually accompanied by a hand salute with an extended thumb and a v-shape made by spreading the index and ring fingers. This salute was created by Leonard Nimoy on the fly during the filming of the first episode of the second season of Star Trek: The Original Series. Nimoy felt there should be a distinct greeting amongst Vulcans, something akin to a handshake, so he adopted a gesture used in the synagogue he attended as a youth. The Jewish gesture he co-opted for Star Trek was originally a blessing used by the kohanim, whom are genealogical descendents of Jewish priests from the Jerusalem Temple. As the Vulcan salute seeped into pop culture, many incorrectly assumed it was a tip of the hat to the hippie culture that arose around the same time. It was not until much later when Nimoy revealed the secret of the salute, that its Jewish origins were made public.

Bookmark this:

On June 6, 2009, when Alysa Stanton, 45, is officially ordained, she’ll create history as the first African American woman to become a rabbi and the first African American rabbi to lead a majority white congregation. In August, Stanton is to begin her new job at Congregation Bayt Shalom in Greenville, NC, a synagogue associated with both the Conservative and Reform movements. Stanton’s ordainment comes at a time when, according to the Institute for Jewish and Community Research, approximately 20% of American Jews are “racially and ethnically diverse by birth…by conversion or adoption.” And, “Approximately 20,000 – 30,000 marriages between Jews and African Americans grew out of the civil rights movement.”

Stanton was born in Cleveland, Ohio and was raised as a Pentecostal Christian, but believes that even at an early age she was, “a seeker.” She converted to Judaism during college in 1987, and after attending Lancaster University in England and receiving a Master of Education degree from Colorado State University in 1992, she then studied Torah at the HUC-JIR campuses in Jerusalem and in Cincinnati, Ohio. When asked if she was born Jewish, Stanton usually replies, “Yes. But not to a Jewish womb.”

Bookmark this:

On October 6, 1965, the Los Angeles Dodgers were in Minnesota taking on the Twins in game one of the World Series. Scheduled to take the mound for the Dodgers was their ace, Cy Young Award-winner Sandy Koufax. But Koufax, being Jewish, shocked the nation by refusing to pitch in order to observe Yom Kippur, which fell on the same day. This act of courage garnered the respect and admiration of many Jewish Americans and drew criticism from other circles. Suddenly, the holiday of Yom Kippur received widespread attention and Jews everywhere felt a sense of pride for their heritage and had great respect for Sandy Koufax for his commitment to Jewish principle. Koufax was not the first Jewish baseball player to decline playing on Yom Kippur however. Hank Greenberg, the great homerun slugger for the Detroit Tigers, sat out a game while in a tense pennant race in 1934. Yet somehow it is Sandy Koufax who remains the most famous Jewish athlete who wouldn’t compromise his religious values for the game.

A bit more about Sandy Koufax…

Koufax was born Sanford Braun on December 30, 1935 and was raised in Brooklyn, New York. His parents divorced when he was three, so he took the name of his stepfather, Irving Koufax. Sandy excelled on the basketball court as a teenager and played for a team at the local Jewish Community Center. While pitching in high school, Brooklyn Dodgers scout Al Campanis asked Koufax to come to Ebbets Field for a tryout and was amazed saying, “There are two times in my life the hairs on my arms stood up: The first time I saw the Sistine Chapel and the first time I saw Sandy Koufax throw a fastball.”

Koufax was soon signed by the Dodgers and took the place of then mediocre relief pitcher and future Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda. From 1955-1960, Koufax was relegated to a small role on the team and posted only modest numbers. After the 1960 season, Koufax began an intense workout schedule and fixed some of the hitches in his delivery. The 1961 season was a breakout year for Koufax and he became an all-star pitcher and broke Christy Mathewson’s National League strikeout record. Koufax would come to dominate baseball over the next five seasons. He won the Cy Young Award three times, pitched three no-hitters (including a perfect game in ‘65) and led the now Los Angeles Dodgers to World Series victories in ’63 and ’65, and a loss in ’66. Plagued by an arthritic left elbow, Koufax was forced into retirement after the 1966 season. Koufax left the game after an incredible season in which he posted a 27-9 record and a 1.73 ERA.

After retirement, Koufax worked as a baseball announcer for NBC for six seasons and was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972. In April 2007, more than four decades after his retirement from baseball, Koufax was the final player chosen in the inaugural Israel Baseball League draft by the Modi’in Miracle. The Miracle’s manager, Art Shamsky, said, “It’s been 41 years between starts for him. If he’s rested and ready to take the mound again, we want him on our team.” Koufax declined to join the Miracle, despite the fact that he would have been working on 14,875 days rest.

Bookmark this:

Bette Midler may now be known affectionately as “The Divine Miss M-atchmaker” after advising single actress Jennifer Aniston that she should join JDate, according to a recent report in PEOPLE Magazine. Asked whether Aniston should post a profile on an online dating service, Midler said with a laugh, “Oh please, you mean JDate? Put her up on JDate and see how she does!” We here at JDate agree – but is Jennifer Aniston Jewish? As far as we know, she is predominantly of Greek ancestry, but her character Rachel Green on Friends, is, in fact, Jewish. So Jennifer may not be an official member of the tribe, but she did play one on TV and that counts for something.

Should Jennifer decide to join JDate, in addition to making plenty of the guys on JDate really excited, she’ll be next in a list of several famous JDaters, including Representative Steve Rothman (D-N.J.), who is a JDate success story, and music producer/Britney Spears’ ex, JR Rotem (see his old profile, below)

Bookmark this:

Did you know that all three members of the Beastie Boys, Michael “Mike D” Diamond (vocals/drums), Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz (vocals/guitar) and Adam “MCA” Yauch (vocals/bass), are Jewish? So is their D.J. Michael “Mix Master Mike” Schwartz! As unlikely as it may seem, these three Jewish kids from Manhattan and Brooklyn were the first rap group to top the Billboard Top 100, and are still headlining artists after a 20-plus-year career. They have also made their mark on the American cultural landscape with their adoption of vintage fashion, kitsch culture, genre-bending musical exploration and social causes.

The Beasties started out as a hardcore punk band in 1979, who later began to frequent hip-hop dance clubs in the early ‘80s when hip-hop began to explode in NYC. After creating a hip-hop track based on a prank phone call, they captured the attention of Def Jam co-founder Rick Rubin. With Rubin, the group would record the landmark rap/rock record Licensed to Ill, which yielded the classics, “Paul Revere,” “Brass Monkey” and the mock anthem, “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right to Party.”

Following the wild success of License to Ill, tempered by its accompanying controversy, the group relocated to Los Angeles, dropped their record label and released the surprisingly smart, funny and sonically-layered Paul’s Boutique in 1989. The record failed to recapture the stunning success of their debut, but over time would be seen as one of the most influential hop-hop records of the era. After the perceived failure of Paul’s Boutique, the group re-acclimated themselves with their instruments and embarked on a two-year jam session that resulted in 1992’s Check Your Head. The album returned to the group Billboard Top 10 on the strength of the single “So What’cha Want” and the record was praised by critics and fans alike for its combination of jazz/funk instrumentals, hip-hop and punk. The group retained the same formula and received even bigger success with the multi-platinum, Ill Communication in 1994 which yielded the hits “Sabotage” and “Sure Shot.”

After a four-year hiatus, the group returned with the spacey #1 album, Hello Nasty, featuring “Intergalactic” and “Body Movin’” and headlined stadium tours highlighted by the prowess of their new D.J., Mix Master Mike. After another long break, in 2004, the group returned to #1 with the all-hip-hop To the 5 Boroughs (“Ch-Check it Out,” “Triple Trouble”) and later released the all-instrumental, Grammy Award-winning, The Mix-Up in 2007. In 2009, the group will headline various music festivals around the globe and are set the release a new record tentatively titled, Tadlock’s Glasses.
Did You Know?

• Ad-Rock is the son off acclaimed playwright Israel Horovitz (Line, Park Your Car in Harvard Yard, The Indian Wants the Bronx).
• In 1985, the Beasties were the opening act on Madonna’s Virgin Tour.
• Mike D’s wife is film director Tamra Davis (Billy Madison, CB4, Half Baked). Watch her make banana nut bread on her online cooking show.

Bookmark this:

Did you know that the fictional character Krusty the Clown from The Simpsons is, in fact, Jewish? Like many famous Jewish entertainers, Krusty changed his birth name from Herschel Shmoikel Pinchas Yerucham Krustofski and is the son of Rabbi Hyman Krusofski. Krusty is the long-time host of Bart and Lisa’s favorite TV show, The Krusty the Clown Show, which is a combination of kiddie variety television hi-jinks and cartoons including The Itchy & Scratchy Show. Krusty is often portrayed as a burnt-out, addiction-riddled smoker, who is made miserable by show business but continues on anyway. He has become one of the most featured characters outside of the Simpson family and has been the focus of several episodes. In the 3rd season of The Simpsons, Krusty starred in a famous episode entitled, Like Father, Like Clown, which was a parody of The Jazz Singer. In this episode, we learn that Krusty’s father, Rabbi Hyman Krustofski (voiced by Jackie Mason), strongly opposed Krusty’s wish to become a clown and make people laugh, wanting the boy to go to yeshiva (rabbinical school) instead.

However, Krusty performed slapstick comedy behind his father’s back and when Rabbi Krustofski found out, he disowned his son, and didn’t speak to him for 25 years. Krusty later reconciled with his father with the assistance of Bart and Lisa. It was later revealed that Krusty did not have a Bar Mitzvah service, because Hyman feared he would violate the sanctity of the rites by “acting up.” Krusty had two adult Bar Mitzvah ceremonies: a Hollywood gala, and then a simple ceremony intended to reconnect with his father.

In 2003, Krusty was included in a special history of Jewish entertainers’ exhibit at the Jewish Museum in New York City.

Bookmark this:

Brothers George and Ira Gershwin and fellow composer and lyricist Irving Berlin, are three of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. Did you know they are all Jewish? Most people are unaware that “White Christmas,” one of the most popular Christmas songs ever, was in fact, written by Irving Berlin, a Jewish immigrant from Eastern Europe whose birth name was Israel Isadore Beilin. Irving Berlin also wrote other mega-famous songs such as, “God Bless America,” “Anything You can Do” and “There’s No Business (Like Show Business).”

George and Ira Gershwin (born Jacob Gershowitz and Israel Gershowitz) are brothers who co-wrote some of the most famous American compositions of the early 20th century. With George’s compositions and Ira’s lyrics, the two are responsible for landmark songs such as, “Someone to Watch Over Me,”“I Got Rhythm” and “Summertime.” The duo also co-wrote the operas Porgy and Bess and Of Thee I Sing, amongst others. George’s crowning achievement may be his amazing 1924 composition, “Rhapsody in Blue,” used notably in the title sequence of Woody Allen’s Manhattan in 1979. Unfortunately, George passed away of a brain tumor in 1937, at the age of 38, but Ira resumed his musical career a few years later and continued to write hit songs with composers Jerome Kern, Kurt Weill and Harold Arlen.

Bookmark this:

Of the 660 Nobel prizes awarded between 1901 and 1990, over 160 were awarded to Jews. In the end, Jews win more Nobel prizes than any other ethnicity. They win 40 times more than should be expected, based upon the small size of the Jewish population.

Below are some notable Jewish Nobel Prize Winners and what they would likely say about themselves in their JDate “About Me” essays:

Albert Einstein
About Me: Any Jewish women out there looking to share some electromagnetism? I’m into physics, smoking a pipe and growing my hair out. When I’m not busy listening to Mozart, I’m into relativistic cosmology, capillary action, classical problems of statistical mechanics and their application to quantum theory. People assume because of my genius status that I have special talents, but I’m really just a very curious person. Want to make a connection beyond space and time? Send me an email!

Henry Kissinger
About Me: “Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There’s just too much fraternizing with the enemy.” My life as a noble statesman has taught me that that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac (along with oysters and kletzenbrot). I’m on JDate to find a woman who is into power, but also enjoys upbeat conversations about foreign policy, the New York Yankees and drinking bourbon and water at Ben Stein’s house. Most women find my black-rimmed glasses, fashionable black-on-black attire and Bavarian baritone (karaoke anybody?) to be my most appealing features. If interested, send an email; unless you’re a hippie, communist or have a lot of drama (I had enough of that in the ‘70s).

Boris Pasternak
About me: Even as an author it’s hard to describe myself in these bios but I’ll try… Josef Stalin once referred to me as “a weeping Bolshevik” and “Emily Dickinson in trousers,” if that gives you any hint to my personality. I wrote a little novel called Dr. Zhivago in 1956, but it wasn’t read in my homeland of Russia until 1988. My interests include snow, large furry hats and not smiling. I received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1958, but wasn’t on hand to receive it due to political pressures within my homeland. If you would like to have a date, send me an email or put me on your Hot List (no former Soviet Bloc mail-order brides please).

Bookmark this: