The life of Felix Hausdorff is a profound story of duality: he was a brilliant German scientist and writer. But alongside this duality, there existed a Jewish-German duality: Hausdorff was German by culture and Jewish by blood. He considered German science and culture his own, belonged to the highest academic elite of Germany, but the forces ruling German society saw in him, a brilliant…
By a decree of the President of the USSR dated October 16, 1990, Iosif Rapoport was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor with the wording "for his special contribution to the preservation and development of genetics and breeding, and the training of highly qualified scientific personnel." [Alex Gordon]
Her theorem on differential invariants in the calculus of variations, Nöther’s theorem, has been called “one of the most important mathematical theorems used in modern physics.” [Alex Gordon]
Lichtenstädter loved historical-prophetic sketches. In his book Das Neue Weltreich (The New Empire, 1903), he predicted Germany's attack on Poland in October 1939 (he was off by one month). In 1912, Lichtenstädter predicted the "monstrous" slaughter of Armenians by the Turks, which took place in 1915. Long before the historical events, Lichtenstädter predicted the annexation of Austria by Germany…
The main scientific achievement of Lina Stern was the discovery and detailed study of the blood-brain barrier, the hemato-encephalic barrier—a protective mechanism that regulates the exchange of substances between the blood and the brain. [Alex Gordon]
When three Jews in a troubled, hostile-to-their-people Vienna put on a jester's cap and write an operetta with a happy ending, one might think they were indulging in wishful thinking or trying to drown their fears, to dissolve their worries in the desired joy. [Alex Gordon]
I told the butcher that I was Israeli and looking for medical help for my daughter. He found the address of a Jewish pharmacy and directed me there. At the pharmacy, I introduced myself, which caused excitement among the Jewish pharmacists. They were thrilled: we are Jews, we are from Israel, and my grandfather was a pharmacist. Miraculously, a prescription for antibiotics for our daughter…
In his Theses on the Philosophy of History, Benjamin argued that many forms of knowledge are created on a bourgeois principle, and new formulations will be required to ensure proletarian, or class, truth. [Alex Gordon]
In April 1944, Tuwim published an article titled "My, Żydzi Polscy" (We, Polish Jews). The always ironic and witty poet mourned the murdered Jews of Poland, among whom was his mother, killed in the ghetto. [Alex Gordon]
"Let not the believers take the disbelievers as allies instead of the believers. Whoever does so will have no relationship with Allah – unless you take precautions against them". (Quran 3:28; 2:173; 2:185; 4:29; 22:78; 40:28.) [Alex Gordon]
In the USSR, the main character of jokes that mocked the Jews was Rabinovich. This surname came to embody the typical Soviet Jew. [Alex Gordon]
In 1998, Perutz published a collection of essays about scientists and science titled I Wish I'd Made You Angry Earlier: Essays on Science, Scientists, and Humanity. Among these essays was the following: "Friend or Foe of Mankind?" (Fritz Haber, "a man's fascination with poison gas"), where he attempted to decipher the "structure of the hemoglobin molecule" of world history through the example of…
When meeting someone, he would demonstratively introduce himself: "Hello, I am Modigliani, a Jew." His close circle included many people of Jewish descent. [Alex Gordon]
On January 31, 1950, with President Truman's permission, Teller was given carte blanche to develop the hydrogen bomb. It was detonated on one of the Marshall Islands on November 1, 1952 – the mushroom cloud rose to a height of 37 kilometers, and the diameter of the "cap" exceeded 160 kilometers. [Alex Gordon]
After World War II, it seemed that an answer to the Jewish question had been found: the creation of the State of Israel and the positive attitude of Western civilization towards the Jewish people in its diaspora. [Alex Gordon]
In 1941, he published The Last Frontier, a novel about the fate of the Cheyenne Indian tribe. In 1943, he published Citizen Tom Paine, and in 1944, Freedom Road, a novel about the Reconstruction period after the Civil War in the United States. [Alex Gordon]
"I just found out that a great archeological discovery has been made," he began. "Don't ask how I found out about it. It's a big secret. Our authorities do not like such stories very much. A letter written in the 10th century in Kiev was discovered in the old Cairo synagogue. The letter was written in Hebrew. It mentioned Kiev for the first time in history. ..." [Alex Gordon]
Selman decided to leave Russia forever and move to the United States to live with his mother's sisters. On November 2, 1910, he arrived in Philadelphia. In September 1911, Waksman became a student at the New Jersey State College of Agriculture at Rutgers University, from which he graduated in 1915 with a Bachelor of Science degree in agricultural science. Starting his research there in soil…
Claude described himself as a "Jew and an Alsatian, thus doubly Alsatian and doubly Jewish". He associated the wanderings of the Jewish people with the suffering of the inhabitants of Alsace, a land of discord between France and Germany. [Alex Gordon]