Tag Archives: American Jews

Jews of the Week: Straus and Bloomingdale

Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s

Lyman and Joseph Bloomingdale

Lyman Bloomingdale (1841-1905) and Joseph Bloomingdale (1842-1904) were the sons of German-Jewish immigrants who settled in New York. Their father Benjamin started a small clothing shop, and it was here that Lyman and Joseph sold their first hoop skirts for ladies. In 1872, the brothers opened their own store. Business boomed, and in 1886, the company expanded and opened its current world-famous Bloomingdale’s location. Over the next century, Bloomingdale’s went on to open dozens of stores across America, and become one of the most recognizable department store brands in the world. In 1930, Bloomingdale’s joined together with another department store giant – Macy’s. Macy’s began in 1858 as a small dry goods store. Thirty years later, a pair of Jewish brothers (who originally only supplied Macy’s with tableware) became partners in the business, and the shop’s fortunes boomed.

Isidor Straus

The brothers were Isidor Straus (1845-1912) and Nathan Straus (1848-1931), who were also German-Jewish immigrants like the Bloomingdales. Eventually, the two became the sole owners of Macy’s, and turned the company into an internationally-recognized brand, which now has 850 locations. The elder Isidor served as a US Congressmen and was a noted philanthropist and social activist. Tragically, he and his wife were aboard the Titanic when it sank in 1912. Despite his wealth and status, which immediately guaranteed him a seat on a lifeboat, Isidor refused so that all women and children could be saved first. He and his wife did not survive. His brother Nathan was also supposed to cruise the Titanic, but instead decided to take a trip to Israel. This decision saved his life, and Nathan saw this is a divine message.

Nathan Straus

Nathan Straus dedicated the rest of his life to support the Jewish state, going on to donate two thirds of his wealth for the cause. His money opened up countless schools, health clinics and public kitchens in Israel. The modern city of Netanya is named after him. Meanwhile, Nathan also did a great deal at home. He opened a pasteurized milk institute that gave out free milk to children, and is credited with significantly reducing the incidence of milk-borne diseases. During the recession of 1893, he gave away coal and meat for free, opened lodgings for 64,000 people, and provided 50,000 meals for a penny each. In the recession of 1914-15 he provided over one million such penny meals, and during World War I, sold his private yacht in order to feed orphans. His personal motto was: “The world is my country, to do good is my religion.”

Words of the Week

God transforms spirituality into physicality; the Jew makes physical things spiritual.
– Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov

Jew of the Week: Theodore Maiman

Lasers!

Theodore Maiman

Theodore Harold Maiman (1927-2007) was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Denver. The son of an electrical engineer, Maiman earned money as a teenager by repairing people’s radios and appliances. After a year in the navy, he focused on his studies and eventually earned a Ph.D in physics from Stanford in 1955. He then joined a company under contract to the US Army and led a team working on masers (these are like lasers, but using microwaves). His team was able to improve the maser from a 2.5-ton machine to a small 4 pound device. Building on this success, Maiman convinced his bosses to fund his work on lasers. In 1960, he succeeded in creating the first working laser. Maiman went on to invent a number of other important innovations in the field of optics. He also founded several successful technology and venture capital firms. His paper on lasers was described as “probably more important per word than any of the papers published by Nature over the past century.” Maiman won a handful of prestigious awards for his work, and has been inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

Words of the Week

If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1000 miles per gallon.

– Theodore Maiman

Jew of the Week: Les Wexner

Les Wexner

Leslie H. Wexner (b. 1937) was born in Ohio to Russian-Jewish immigrants. He dropped out of law school to help his parents, who opened a small clothing shop after struggling for many years in low-level jobs in the garment industry. At 26, he loaned $5000 and opened his own sportswear store for young women, called ‘The Limited’. The store was a hit, pulling in $160,000 in sales in its first year. Just 6 years later, the company went public. Wexner has been its CEO since then, making him the all time longest-serving CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Over that time, he has taken his company to new heights, starting a number of new businesses, and acquiring others, including Victoria’s Secret, La Senza, Pink, Bath & Body Works, and Abercrombie & Fitch. He now oversees 3000 locations around the world, and his net worth is estimated at around $6 billion. A sizable portion of this wealth goes to charitable causes. Wexner has donated millions to the United Way, Hillel, Birthright, and Ohio State University. He has given over $160 million to the Columbus Foundation, and pledged $100 million for medical and cancer research. His own Wexner Foundation provides funding for Jewish leadership programs, master’s degrees in rabbinics and Jewish studies, Jewish day schools in the US and universities in Israel, as well as sponsoring Israelis studying at Harvard. For his extensive philanthropic work and business acumen, Wexner has won numerous awards and honourary degrees.

Shavuot Begins Tonight!

Words of the Week

Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.
– Friedrich Nietzsche