Tag Archives: American Jews

Jew of the Week: Ruth Gruber

Journalist, Photographer, War Hero

Ruth Gruber

Ruth Gruber (b. 1911) was born in Brooklyn to Russian-Jewish immigrants. By 15 she was already studying at New York University, and at 20 received a doctorate from the University of Cologne, which many believe made her the youngest person in the world to hold a Ph.D. While studying in Germany, she experienced Nazism first hand, and brought back some of the earliest accounts of these horrors to the US. Having always dreamed of being a writer, Gruber finally began her writing career in 1932. A few years later, she was among the first foreign correspondents in the Soviet Union. During World War II, Gruber served as the Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Interior. The seminal moment of her life came in 1944, when she was sent on a special mission to save 1000 Jewish refugees and American soldiers trapped in Italy. Their convoy of 29 ships sailed through treacherous waters and managed to arrive safely in the US. To protect her in case she was captured, she was awarded the rank of “General” (and therefore could not be killed by enemy soldiers according to the Geneva Conventions). This was America’s one and only mission to save Jews during the entire war. Gruber later helped these Jews gain the necessary documentation to stay in the US and not be deported. After the war, Gruber returned to journalism and was stationed in Israel for a time. She witnessed, photographed, and covered the famous voyage of the Exodus that carried 4500 Jewish refugees. She later assisted in the plight of Ethiopian Jewry. Gruber went on to write 19 books and many popular articles. She has won numerous awards for her work, and in 2010 a documentary about her life was released. Gruber will soon celebrate her 103rd birthday. She has been described as a “scholar, writer, journalist and humanitarian, a world class photojournalist.”

UPDATE: Sadly, Ruth Gruber passed away in November of 2016.

Words of the Week

Figure out what you’re willing to die for. Then live for it.
– Rabbi Noach Weinberg

Jew of the Week: Benny Goodman

The King of Swing – America’s First Rock Star

Benny Goodman

Benjamin David Goodman (1909-1986) was born in Chicago, the son of a Polish-Jewish father and Lithuanian-Jewish mother, immigrants who met in the U.S. Goodman took his first music lessons when he was 10 years old at the local synagogue. By 12, he made his professional debut (playing the clarinet) at Chicago’s Central Park Theater. At 16 he made his first recordings with the Ben Pollack Orchestra. He would go on to play alongside some of the most popular bands and most famous artists of the day. His own band would appear in a number of films, and on national radio. Despite the open racism and segregation of the time, Goodman began working with African-Americans, and is considered the first major American musician to have an interracial band (which meant he had to avoid playing concerts in the Southern states, where interracial bands were illegal). This was a key step in opening the door for more African-Americans to enter the mainstream music industry. By 1935, Goodman was one of the central forces that ushered in the “swing” era. In fact, he would be crowned the “King of Swing” (in addition to the “Rajah of Rhythm” and the “Patriarch of the Clarinet”). He is often credited with inspiring the start of the “dance craze”, and some consider him “America’s first rock star”. In 1962, Benny Goodman made history when he was sent to the USSR – the first American band on Soviet soil. The tour was designed to ease Cold War tensions, and was hailed a great success on both sides after 32 concerts, including for Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. It was a symbolic start of the process of reconciliation between the US and the USSR. Goodman was voted the best clarinetist multiple times, was inducted in the Jazz Hall of Fame, and awarded a Grammy for Lifetime Achievement. His fascinating story was immortalized in a major motion picture, The Benny Goodman Story.

Words of the Week

God would not have preserved our people for so long if we did not have another role to play in the history of mankind.
– Theodor Herzl

Jew of the Week: Ray Kurzweil

“Revolutionary Who Made America”

Ray Kurzweil

Raymond Kurzweil (b. 1948) was born in New York to Austrian-Jewish parents who escaped Europe before the start of World War II. He was fascinated by science-fiction from a young age and by age 5, decided that he wanted to be an inventor. He was already designing and building computers by 12, and developed a theory for the neocortex of the brain by 14. The following year he wrote his first computer program, and a couple years later won the International Science Fair for creating a computer that could compose music. While studying at MIT, he created a program that matches high school students with colleges, and sold it for the equivalent of about $700,000 in today’s value. In 1974, Kurzweil created a scanner that could read most fonts, then used the technology to create a reading machine for the blind. At the behest of Stevie Wonder, Kurzweil then turned to improving music technology, inventing a new generation of synthesizers whose quality was indistinguishable from that of live instruments. Kurzweil went on to develop one of the first speech recognition systems, followed by devices that assist people with learning disabilities, blindness, ADD, and dyslexia. He published his first book in 1990, followed by six more to date, mostly about the future of technology, as well as nutrition and health. Five of the books have been bestsellers. Many of his predictions about the future have already come true. Kurzweil has won a great number of awards, and has been inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, while being described as one of the “revolutionaries who made America”. He now works full-time for Google, developing machine learning and language processing. When he dies, Kurzweil intends to have his body cryogenically frozen and stored until a future time when technology might resurrect him.

Words of the Week

If you drop gold and books, pick up first the books, and then the gold.
– Sefer Hasidim