Tag Archives: Polish Jews

Jew of the Week: Jack Lew

Highest Ranking Orthodox Jew in the U.S.

Jacob Joseph Lew (b. 1955) grew up in Queens and graduated from Forest Hills High School. He is the son of a lawyer originally from Poland. Lew began his career in politics working as an aide to a democratic representative, while also studying at Harvard, and later rose through the ranks in Congress. Eventually he became director of several institutions, including the Center for Middle East Research. In 1993 he was appointed Special Assistant to President Clinton. His amazing work in the budgeting department led to him becoming the director of the Office of Management and Budget for the Clinton Administration, meanwhile serving on the National Security Council. After Clinton’s term ended, Lew was Vice President of New York University, where he also served as Clinical Professor. Lew returned to government with the Obama administration, first as Deputy Secretary of State, then Budget Director, and most recently White House Chief of Staff (the highest ranking White House employee – sometimes nicknamed the “Co-President”). He has since taken up the position of Treasury Secretary, making him the highest ranking Orthodox Jew in U.S. history. It also means his signature will appear on all newly printed currency in the U.S. This sparked a bit of controversy due to Lew’s funny signature, causing President Obama to joke that he wanted to rescind the nomination when he saw it. Lew is a practicing Orthodox Jew, devoted to his family and his community. In the past he assisted Natan Sharansky in freeing Jews from the former Soviet Union, together with his rabbi, who has described Lew as “one of the most unassuming, giving, and caring congregants I’ve ever been blessed to have… rare for a person in such a powerful position to be the quintessential mensch.”

 

Words of the Week

Man… sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present, the result being that he does not live in the the present or the future. He lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.
– The Dalai Lama

Jack Lew’s Loopy Signature

Jews of the Week: Zev Wolfson and Sir Isaac Wolfson

Zev Wolfson

Zev Wolfson (1928-2012) was born in Lithuania, deported to Siberia during World War II and finally made his way to New York. With no money he began working as a light-bulb salesman, but soon found his way into real estate where he quickly earned a large sum of wealth. Inspired by the sight of an Israeli flag, Wolfson began working tirelessly for Israel, lobbying the U.S. government to help the nascent state. He secured arms for Israel during the critical period of the Yom Kippur War, and built countless institutions across the country. Yitzchak Rabin said he didn’t know “one other Jew in the world who, as an individual, had done more for the State of Israel”. In spiritual matters, too, Wolfson was a giant, financing yeshivas worldwide, and paying for such programs as RAJE, Aish Fellowships, and Argentina’s Morasha, which bring thousands of young Jews to Israel every year at virtually no cost. Possibly every Jew in the world has somehow been touched by Wolfson’s outreach – he even established a Torah-learning program in Iran during the times of the Shah! Humble and dedicated to Torah, he made sure to donate more than 50% of his earnings, and was known to fly economy class despite his wealth. His family continues to contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to Jewish causes every year.

Sir Isaac Wolfson

Zev Wolfson is not to be confused with Sir Isaac Wolfson (1897-1991) of Scotland, another great Jewish philanthropist. Born to poor Polish immigrants, Isaac Wolfson couldn’t afford school so he became a salesperson. He worked his way up to become director of Great Universal Stores, once among the largest retailers in the UK, with over 50,000 employees. A devout Orthodox Jew, Sir Wolfson donated virtually all of his wealth, much of it to build the young State of Israel, saying “No man should have more than £100,000. The rest should go to charity.”

Words of the Week

People are accustomed to look at the heavens and wonder what happens there. It would be better if they would look within themselves to see what happens there.
– Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, “The Kotzker Rebbe”

Jews of the Week: George Lerner & The Hassenfeld Brothers

All Your Favourite Toys!

Mr. Potato Head – one of the most succesful toys of all time!

Having written recently of the world’s largest toy company, Mattel, it would be unfair not to mention the second-largest company, Hasbro. This toy giant was founded as a tiny textile company in 1923 by Polish-Jewish immigrants Henry and Helal Hassenfeld. Over time, they shifted their business towards pencil cases and school supplies, and later to children’s toys. Meanwhile, a fellow Jew (of Romanian descent, born in Brooklyn) named George Lerner invented Mr. Potato Head. In 1952, the Hassenfeld brothers bought the rights to the toy, quickly putting their company on the map. In fact, Mr. Potato Head was the first toy to be advertised on television! But the real big day came in 1964 when the brothers came up with G.I. Joe, thus launching the era of the now-ubiquitous “action figure”. Shortening the company name to Hasbro (a contraction of Hassenfeld Brothers), they continued growing tremendously, creating toys for Star Wars and Sesame Street, and later for Transformers, Batman and Pokemon. Favourites such as Play-Doh, Tonka, My Little Pony, and even Parker Brothers board games like Monopoly, are all created by Hasbro. True to Judaism, the company has become well-known for its charity work, setting up the Hasbro Children’s Foundation and the Hasbro Charitable Trust. They also built and continue to finance the Hassenfeld Children’s Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders, considered one of the top children’s institutions in the world!

 

Words of the Week

The responsible nuclear Iran. Wait. We’re supposed to believe that a revolutionary Shiite theocracy is overnight going to become a sober, calculating disciple of the realist school of diplomacy … because it has finally acquired weapons of mass destruction? Presumably this would be in the same way that, if German scientists had developed an atomic bomb as quickly as the Manhattan Project, the Second World War would have ended with a negotiated settlement brokered by the League of Nations.
– Niall Ferguson