Tag Archives: Israel

Jews of the Week: Martin Cooper and Joel Engel

Inventing the Cellphone

Martin Cooper & DynaTAC

Though many people were involved in the production of the cellphone, credit is given to Martin Cooper (b. 1928), nicknamed the “father of the cellphone”, who made the first cellular phone call in New York on April 3, 1973. Cooper was the executive of Motorola, and placed the first-ever cellphone call to his major competitor Joel S. Engel (b. 1936), a fellow Jew who was also working on cellphone technology. Engel participated in the Apollo space program and worked for AT&T before becoming the research head at Bell Labs, where he had previously co-led the team that developed “the architecture of the cellular network and its parameterization”. Meanwhile, Martin Cooper was born in Chicago to Ukranian-Jewish immigrants. Besides the cellphone, he had many more contributions to radio and communications technology, including “Cooper’s Law”, named in his honour. He went on to become Vice-President and Corporate Director at Motorola, which opened its first branch outside the U.S. in Israel. Their first phone was the DynaTAC, which weighed 1 kilogram and cost $9,000 (adjusting for inflation). Cooper described it as such: “The battery lifetime was 20 minutes, but that wasn’t really a big problem because you couldn’t hold that phone up for that long.” He said that his inspiration for the cellphone came from Captain Kirk’s Communicator device on Star Trek!

Words of the Week

Joel Engel

We have discovered how to hit the Jews where they are the most vulnerable. The Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from them. We are going to win, because they love life and we love death.

– Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah

Jew of the Week: Estée Lauder

Beauty Queen, Business Genius

Estee Lauder

Estée Mentzer (1908-2004) was born in Queens to Hungarian-Jewish immigrants. She took an early interest in her chemist uncle’s nascent beauty products business. Soon after high school, she began selling some of his concoctions and found success. After marrying Joseph Lauder, the two opened their own cosmetics company and Esther quickly became famous for her ingenious marketing strategies. In 1953 she created a new fragrance – “Youth Dew” – which sold 50,000 bottles that year. By 1984, it sold 150 million. No wonder she was the only woman named to TIME’s list of 20th century business geniuses. She also won the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her son Ronald Lauder is a fervent activist for Israel and Jewish causes worldwide. In 2007, he was elected president of the World Jewish Congress. For these reasons, Estée Lauder is frequently the focus of anti-Israel boycott groups. Little to these groups know that Estée Lauder encompasses 27 brands including Clinique, Aveda and MAC. Words of wisdom from Esther: “I have never worked a day in my life without selling. If I believe in something, I sell it, and I sell hard.” She wasn’t just talking about beauty products.

Words of the Week

King David said, “Seek peace and pursue it.” (Psalms 34:15) This means: Seek peace for your friends, and pursue it among your enemies; seek peace where you dwell, and pursue it in all other places; seek peace with your body and pursue it with your all your resources; seek peace for yourself and pursue it for others; seek peace today, and pursue it for tomorrow.
– Sefer Ma’alot HaMiddot

Jew of the Week: Rosalind Franklin

The One Who Revealed DNA’s Secret

Rosalind Franklin

Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958) The world’s most famous biophysicist was born into a wealthy Jewish-British family, well-known for their roles in founding the Jewish state and helping Jews flee from the Nazis. Her great-uncle, Herbert Samuel, was the first observant Jew in history to serve in the British government, and carried the title “Viscount”. From an early age, Franklin was noted for her talent in scientific exploration. Combining her knowledge of biology, chemistry and physics, she was able to produce the highest quality images of DNA and RNA, evidence used by Watson and Crick to deduce DNA’s structure, a breakthrough moment for science. Additionally, she discovered DNA’s two forms (A and B), designed an ingenious method to separate them, and unraveled the mysteries of TM virus. Likely due to high doses of radiation, Franklin battled at least three different types of cancers. But this wouldn’t slow her down. She continued working, publishing 13 papers and serving on the team that developed the vaccine for polio. Unfortunately, she succumbed to her illnesses at a very early age, and was unable to claim her Nobel prize (which is not awarded posthumously). She would become an icon of feminism, breaking the barriers of the then male-dominated world of science. Franklin’s work has been described as “the most beautiful x-ray photographs of any substance ever taken”.

Words of the Week

A person is obligated to say: The entire world was created for me.
– Talmud, Kiddushin 82b