Tag Archives: Cold War

Jew of the Week: Edwin Land

Say Cheese!

Edwin Land, Inventor of the Polaroid Camera

Edwin Land, Inventor of the Polaroid Camera

Edwin Herbert Land (1909-1991) was born in Connecticut, the son of a Russian-Jewish immigrant father. From a young age he loved taking things apart, and dreamed of inventions. He went to Harvard to study chemistry but left after just a few months. Land moved to New York, and there invented a filter that could polarize light. He returned to Harvard and spent three more years there, but once again dropped out, this time to start a company with his physics instructor, who came from a wealthy family and could provide the funds for Land’s work. Land first applied his filter technology to glasses, and invented polarized sunglasses. His technology spread rapidly, and was used in 3D movie glasses, LCD screens, windows, headlights and windshields. As the company grew larger, he renamed it the Polaroid Corporation in 1937. During World War II, Land focused his attention on military technology to assist the war effort. He helped develop some of the earliest night-vision goggles, smart bombs and heat-seeking bombs, as well as the Vectograph, which allows soldiers to identify camouflaged enemy troops. Land’s most famous invention would come after the war, when he put his mind towards making a camera that would generate a photograph immediately. Thus was born the instant camera, also known as a Polaroid camera, and originally called the Land Camera. Madly popular, the camera made Polaroid world-famous, and the “darling of Wall Street”. Land continued to assist the military and the government during the Cold War, spearheading the U2 spy plane, balloon cameras, satellite cameras, and various espionage technology. He was a regular adviser to American presidents. Land remained a scientist his whole life, running experiments daily. A true visionary, when he had an idea he wouldn’t rest until he could materialize it; he would often have to be reminded to eat, and once wore the same clothes for 18 days straight. Land was also a humanist and proponent of social justice, giving priority to hire women and African-Americans in his labs, at a time when it was highly unpopular to do so. He was beloved by the people and the press, won a long list of awards (including the Medal of Freedom), and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. His original polarizer invention was said to be “the most significant invention in the field of optics, certainly within the last generation, probably in the last century.” He finally earned an honourary degree from Harvard in 1957.

Words of the Week

Our young people, for the most part – unless they are geniuses – after a very short time in college give up any hope of being individually great. They plan, instead, to be good. They plan to be effective. They plan to do their job… It has become our habit, therefore, to think that the age of greatness has passed, that the age of the great man is gone… But I submit to you that when in each man the dream of personal greatness dies, democracy loses the real source of its future strength.

– Edwin Land

Jew of the Week: Benny Goodman

The King of Swing – America’s First Rock Star

Benny Goodman

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: Sami Rohr

Sami Rohr, Top Philanthropist

Shmuel Rohr (1926-2012) was born to an Orthodox family in Berlin, a diligent student of Torah even during the Holocaust while fleeing to Belgium, then France, and finally to Switzerland. Fearing another war in Cold War Europe, Rohr’s father sent him to Colombia. Over the next 25 years, Rohr applied his famous intellect to business, eventually building nearly half of Colombia’s capital city, Bogota. Throughout, he maintained his devotion to Torah, especially the mitzvah of charity. He would go on to donate over $250 million to Jewish causes over his lifetime, including developing a young State of Israel, and reinvigorating Jewish life in the former Soviet Union. After an encounter with Chabad rabbis, Rohr started to donate generously to the organization, eventually bankrolling the salaries of over 500 Chabad rabbi-emissaries around the world. Rohr established a global project to preserve Yiddish literature, and his children set up the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, one of the richest literary prizes in the world. Rohr also developed a unique system of philanthropy that is used by wealthy people worldwide. Humble and modest, Rohr often donated anonymously, and never requested his name on any of the institutions or buildings he funded, which is probably why most people have never heard of him. It is therefore said that no one really knows the true extent of his charity work. Sadly, Rohr passed away last week at age 86.

 

 

Words of the Week

The righteous promise little and do a lot; the wicked promise much and don’t do even a little.
– Talmud, Bava Metzia 87a