11/28/2025
Let’s see what Jews have done. I’m open to other lists showing the contributions to the world that people of other religious backgrounds have provided. Keep in mind, the following list is only a partial one.
Feel free to share.
Penicillin by Ernst Chain, polio vaccine by Jonas Salk, laser by Theodore Maiman, Google by Larry Page and Sergey Brin-Jewish roots there. Frequency hopping for Bluetooth? Hedy Lamarr. Also, Jonas Salk again for the oral polio shot later, and Albert Einstein's relativity.
Nuclear fission by Lise Meitner, chemotherapy pioneer Gertrude Elion, recombinant DNA by Paul Berg, MRI by Paul Lauterbur, contact lenses by Otto Wichterle, drip irrigation by Simcha Blass, pacemaker by Paul Zoll, streaming media by Shuji Nakamura-wait, no, he’s not Jewish, scratch that. USB flash drive? Dov Moran.
Aspirin development helped by Felix Hoffmann, though Bayer gets the credit-Google that one if curious. Stainless steel by Benno Strauss, instant camera by Edwin Land with Polaroid, Google Maps partly by Noam Shazeer, Waze by Ehud Shabtai. Hepatitis B vaccine? Baruch Blumberg. Fiber optics by Narinder Singh Kapany-Jewish? Yes. Cholesterol drugs like statins refined by Michael Brown. Film photography color by Leopold Mannes and Leopold Godowsky Jr. for Kodachrome. And don’t forget, birth control pill key work by Gregory Pincus
Insulin isolation by Otto Loewi and others in the chain, but Jewish biochemists like Bernhard Zondek helped refine it. Nuclear reactor control rod concept from Leo Szilard. Quasicrystals by Dan Shechtman, Nobel for that. Chemotherapy’s 6-MP by Gertrude Elion. Wi-Fi encryption standards by Adi Shamir. Anti-malarial drugs by Ruth Arnon. Avram Herzberg on cryptography. Freud’s psychoanalysis, Vaccine refrigeration tech by Hillel Keren.
Quantum computing groundwork-David Deutsch. The first artificial heart valve, Albert Starr. Instant messaging precursor, Yossi Vardi with ICQ. Even the shopping cart-Sylvan Goldman. Oh, and Bluetooth again-Hedy Lamarr’s frequency-hopping was decades ahead. The atomic bomb-Leo Szilard again, chain reaction letter to Roosevelt. Or Einstein’s photoelectric effect, basis for solar cells.
Prestigious Awards
Alright, here’s a solid list of Jews who’ve snagged big awards. Nobel Peace Prize: - Alfred Fried (1911) - Peace journalism - Tobias Asser (1911) - International law - Rene Cassin (1968) - Human rights declaration - Henry Kissinger (1973) - Vietnam diplomacy - Menachem Begin (1978) - Egypt-Israel peace - Elie Wiesel (1986) - Holocaust witness - Shimon Peres (1994) - Oslo accords - Yitzhak Rabin (1994) - Oslo accords - David Trimble (1998, shared) - Northern Ireland peace Nobel Physics: - Albert Einstein (1921) - Photoelectric effect - Niels Bohr (1922) - Atomic structure - Richard Feynman (1965) - Quantum electrodynamics - Arno Penzias (1978) - Cosmic microwave background - Sheldon Glashow (1979) - Electroweak theory - Steven Weinberg (1979) - Electroweak theory Nobel Chemistry: - Fritz Haber (1918) - Ammonia synthesis - Adolf von Baeyer (1905) - Organic dyes - Gertrude Elion (1988) - Drug development - Aaron Klug (1982) - Nucleic acid structure - Ada Yonath (2009) - Ribosome structure Nobel Medicine: - Karl Landsteiner (1930) - Blood groups - Otto Loewi (1936) - Nerve transmission - Jonas Salk (not Nobel, but polio vaccine-honorary nods) - Baruch Blumberg (1976) - Hepatitis B - Paul Berg (1980) - Genetic engineering Nobel Literature: - Shmuel Yosef Agnon (1966) - Hebrew prose - Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978) - Yiddish stories - Nadine Gordimer (1991) - Anti-apartheid writing Nobel Economics: - Paul Samuelson (1970) - Economic theory - Milton Friedman (1976) - Monetary policy - Gary Becker (1992) - Human behavior economics - Robert Aumann (2005) - Game theory Fields Medal (Math’s Nobel): - Jesse Douglas (1936) - Plateau problem - Laurent Schwartz (1950) - Distributions - Paul Cohen (1966) - Continuum hypothesis - Alan Baker (1970) - Diophantine approximation - Elon Lindenstrauss (2010) - Ergodic theory Turing Award (Computing’s Nobel): - Marvin Minsky (1969) - AI foundations - Michael Rabin (1976) - Algorithms - Richard Karp (1985) - Computational complexity - Shafi Goldwasser (2012) - Cryptography Pulitzer Prizes (examples in literature/journalism): - Herman Wouk (1952) - The Caine Mutiny novel - Saul Bellow (1976) - Humboldt’s Gift novel - Michael Chabon (2001) - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Art Spiegelman (1992) - Maus graphic novel.
Thank you Jewish people! Shalom.
