This was sent to me by my friend De.  She told me when she sent it that she didn’t know if all of the information was accurate. . . but much of it is true, so I’m sharing this Jewish Trivia with you for your reading pleasure.

Joseph Stalin was originally named Joseph David Djugashvili (translating into “son of a Jew.”) As well, all 3 of the women he married were Jewish.

Dwight Eisenhower’s father was a Swedish Jew and was so identified in the West Point Yearbook of 1915.

Intersting Jewish Facts

1. Lillian Friedman married Cruz Rivera.  They named their baby Geraldo Miguel Rivera.  (Funny, it doesn’t sound Jewish!)  Since, according to Jewish law, anyone born to a Jewish mother is Jewish, Geraldo Rivera is Jewish.  As were, among others:  Fiorello Laguardia, Winston Churchill and Cary Grant, as explained below.

2. Fiorello Laguardia’s mother’s name was Jacobson.  His father was not Jewish.  Laguardia spoke seven languages including Hebrew and Yiddish - fluently.

3. Winston Churchill’s mother’s name was Jenny Jerome.

4. Cary Grant’s mother, Elsie, was Jewish.  His father, Elias Leach, was not.  Grant’s original name was Archibald Alexander Leach.  (Robin Leach is his first cousin).

5. Peter Sellers’ mother, Margaret Marks, was Jewish.  His father, Bill Sellers, was a Protestant.  Peter’s real name was Richard Henry Sellers.

6. David Bowie’s mother is Jewish, his father is not.  One of Bowie’s album covers discusses his Jewish ancestry.  His real name:  David Stenton Haywood Jones.

7. Robert DeNiro’s mother is Jewish; his father is not.

8. Shari Belafonte’s mother is Jewish.  Her father, Harry, has a Jewish grandfather.

9. Olivia Newton John’s Jewish grandfather was a Nobel Prize winning physicist.

10. Harrison Ford’s mother is Russian Jewish, his father is Irish Catholic.

Jewish accomplishers

Fact:  The first theater to be used solely for the showing of motion pictures was built by Adolf Zukor.

Fact:  The first full-length sound picture, The Jazz Singer was produced by the Samuel L. Goldwyn & Louis B. Mayer (MGM).  It starred Al Jolson, a descendent of Russian Jews.

Fact:  Dr. Abraham Waksman coined the term “antibiotics”.

Fact:  Polish Jew Casimir Funk, who pioneered a new field of medical research, gave us a word now common in our language:  “vitamins”.

Fact:  The first successful operation for appendicitis was performed by a Jewish surgeon (Dr.  Simon Baruch).

Fact:  Doctor Abraham Jacobi is hailed as America’s father of pediatrics.

Fact:  Until a Doctor Siccary showed differently, Americans believed the tomato was poisonous.

Fact:  Levis, invented by Levi Strauss, is the largest clothing retailer in the world.

Fact:  In 1909, four Jews were among the 60 multicultural signers of the call to the National Action, which resulted in the creation of the NAACP.

Fact:  Emile Berliner is the man who developed the modern day phonograph.  While Thomas Edison was working out a type of phonograph that used a cylinder as a record, Berliner invented a machine that would play a disc.  The machine he patented was called the gramophone, and the famous RCA trademark is a picture of a dog listening to “his master's voice” on Berliner,s device.  The gramophone was superior to Edison’s machine.  In short, Emile Berliner made possible the modern record industry.  His company was eventually absorbed by the Victor Talking Machine Company, now known as RCA.

Fact:  Louis B.  Mayer (MGM) created the idea for the Oscar.

Fact:  European Jews are the founding fathers of all the Hollywood Studios.

Fact:  Jews comprise a mere 1/4 of 1% (13 million) of Earth’s population (6 billion).

Fact:  99% of the world is non/Jewish.

Fact:  Three of greatest and most influential thinkers dominating the 20th century were Einstein, Freud and Marx.

Fact:  The most popular selling Christmas song, “White Christmas”, was written by Irving Berlin.

Fact:  Of the 660 Nobel prizes from 1901 to 1990, 160 have been won by Jews.  In the end, Jews win more Nobel prizes than any other ethnicity.  They win 40 times more than should be expected of them, based upon their small population numbers.

Fact:  Dr.  Jonas Salk is the creator of the first Polio Vaccine.

Fact:  Hayam Solomon and Isaac Moses are responsible for creating the first modern banking institutions.

Fact:  The first department stores of the 19th century, Altmans, Gimbels, Kaufmanns, Lazaruses, Magnins, Mays, and Strausses, became leaders of major department stores.  Julius Rosenwald revolutionized the way Americans purchased goods by improving Sears & Roebuck’s mail order merchandising.  Hart, Schaffner, Marx, Kuppenheimer and Levi Strauss became household names in men’s clothing.  And EJ Korvets was founded by Eight Jewish Korean War Veterans.

Fact:  Marc Chagall, one of the great 20th century painters, was born Moishe Segal in Russia.

Fact:  The fortunes of English financiers such as Isaac Goldsmid, Nathan Rothschild, David Salomons, and Moses Montefiore, helped England become an empire.

Fact:  In 1918, in Detroit, Max Goldberg opened the first commercial parking lot.

Fact:  In 1910, Louis Blaustein and his son opened the first gas station and eventually founded AMOCO Oil, and became one of the richest oil families in the world.

Fact:  Dr. Albert Sabin developed the first oral polio vaccine.

Fact:  Steven Spielberg is the most successful filmmaker since the advent of film.

Fact:  Poet Emma Lazarus’ famous poem,“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses. . .” appears as the inscription on the Statue Of Liberty.

Fact:  Harry Houdini, whose father was a Rabbi, was born Ehrich Weiss in Budapest, Hungry, and became the world’s greatest escape artist and the father of magic and illusion.

Fact:  Dr. Sigmund Freud is the father of psychiatry.

Fact:  Abraham is the father of the world’s 3 major religions.  Judaism and Islam of the Hebrew and Arabic peoples, while Christianity, still worshipped by billions, is named after Jesus Christ, formerly known as “Sweet Jewish Jesus”.

Fact:  Jews are the oldest of any people on earth still around with their national identity and cultural heritage intact.

Fact:  George and Ira Gershwin and Irving Berlin are three of the most prolific composers of the 20th century.

Fact:  Isadore and Nathan Straus, founders of “Abraham and Straus,” eventually became sole owners of Macy’s, the world’s largest department store, in 1896.

Fact:  Dr. Paul “Magic Bullet” Ehrlich, a physician, won the Nobel Prize in 1908 for curing syphilis.

Fact:  Dr. Armand Hammer, physician, businessman, art collector and philanthropist, originated the largest trade between the U. S. and Russia in the past century.

Fact:  Louis Santanel was the financier who provided the funds for Columbus’ voyage to America.

Fact:  Sherry Lansing, of Paramount Pictures, became the first woman president of a major Hollywood studio.

Fact:  Flo Zigfield of “Zigfield Follies,” is the creator of American burlesque.

Fact:  Jews were the brains behind the Confederacy:

Fact:  Maj. Adolph Proskauer led a unit at Gettysburg.

Fact:  Judah P. Benjamin, referred to as “the brains of the confederacy,” held 4 cabinet positions:  Attorney General, February 25 to September 17, 1861:  Secretary of War, September 17, 1861, to March 18, 1862; acting Secretary of War, March 18 to 23, 1862; and Secretary of State, March 18, 1862, until the end of the Civil War.

Fact:  Rabbi Max Michelbacher was a confidant and spiritual advisor to General Robert E. Lee.

Fact:  A great many Jews, recent immigrants from Germany and East Europe, fought for the Confederacy, far out of proportion to their numbers, because they believed they were fighting for Democracy.

Fact:  Theodor Judah was the chief architect and engineer for the American Transcontinental Railroad.