Things we didn’t know we wanted to know.

1) The Roosevelts were Dutch Jews who arrived in NYC in 1682. Claes Roosevelt before he changed his name to Nicholas Roosevelt, was the first Roosevelt ancestor to set foot in America, and Sarah Delano, FDR’s mother, descended from Sephardic Jews.

2) Joseph Stalin was originally named Joseph David Djugashvili (translated as: “son of a Jew”.) All 3 of the women that he married were Jewish.

3) Dwight Eisenhower’s father was a Swedish Jew, and listed in West Point’s Yearbook of 1915.

4) Lillian Friedman, a Jewish woman, married Cruz Rivera. They named their baby Geraldo Miguel Rivera (it doesn’t sound Jewish), but according to Jewish Law, anyone born to a Jewish mother is Jewish. Thus, Geraldo Rivera is Jewish.

5) Fiorello Laguardia, famous former mayor of New York City, whose mother’s name was Jacobson. His father was not Jewish. Laguardia spoke seven languages fluently, including Hebrew and Yiddish.

6) Winston Churchill whose mother’s name was Jenny Jerome, a Jew.

7) Cary Grant, whose mother, Elsie, was Jewish. His father, Elias Leach, was not. Grant’s original name was Archibald Alexander Leach; (Robin Leach is his first cousin).

Peter Sellers’ mother, Margaret Marks, was Jewish. His father, Bill Sellers, was not. Peter’s real name is Richard Henry Sellers.

9) David Bowie’s mother is Jewish, his father is not. One of Bowie’s albums discusses his Jewish ancestry. His real name: David Stenton Haywood Jones.

10) Robert DeNiro’s mother is Jewish.

11) Shari Belafonte’s mother is Jewish. Her father, Harry’s grandfather is a Jew.

12) Olivia Newton John’s grandfather, a Jew, was a Nobel Prize winning physicist.

13) Harrison Ford’s mother is a Russian Jew, his father is Irish Catholic.

14) The first theatre to be used solely for the showing of motion pictures was built by a Jew Adolf Zukor.

15) The first full-length sound picture, The Jazz Singer was produced by Jews, Samuel L. Goldwyn & Louis B. Mayer (MGM).

16) A Jew, Dr Abraham Waksman, coined the term antibiotics.

17) A Polish Jew, Casimir Funk, who pioneered a new field of medical research, gave us a common word — vitamins.

18) The first successful operation for appendicitis was performed by a Jewish surgeon, Dr. Simon Baruch.

19) Dr. Abraham Jacobi hailed as America’s father of Pediatrics, is a Jew.

20) Until a Jewish doctor, Dr. Siccary proved it differently, people believed that tomato was poisonous.

21) A Jew, Levi Strauss, is the inventor/originator of jeans & Levis, the largest clothing retailer in the world.

22) In 1909, four Jews were among the 60 multi-cultural signers of the Call to the National Action, which resulted in the creation of the NAACP.

23) A Jew, Emile Berliner, is the man who developed the modern day phonograph. While Thomas Edison was working out a type of phonograph that used a cylinder as a record, Berliner invented a machine that would play a disc The machine he patented was called the gramophone, and the famous RCA trademark is a picture of a dog listening to “his master’s voice” on Berliner’s device. The gramophone was superior to Edison’s machine. In short, Emile Berliner made possible the modern record industry. His company was eventually absorbed by the Victor Talking Machine Company, now known as RCA

24) A Jew, Louis B. Mayer (co-founder of MGM), created the idea for the Oscar.

25) European Jews are the founding fathers of all the Hollywood Studios.

26) Jews comprise a mere 1/4 of 1% (13 million) of the world’s population (of over 6 billion), and while 99% of the world is non-Jewish, 72% of Pulitzer Prize winners are Jews.

27) Three of greatest & most influential thinkers dominating the 20th Century are Jews – Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, and Karl Marx.

28) The most popular selling Christmas song “White Christmas” was written by a Jew, Irving Berlin.

29) Of the 660 Nobel prizes from 1901 – 1990, 160 have been awarded to Jews. More Jews have won more Nobel prizes than any other ethnicity. They have won 40x more than should be expected of them based upon their small population numbers.

30) A Jew, Dr. Jonas Salk, is the creator of the first polio vaccine.

31) Hayam Solomon & Isaac Moses, both Jews, are responsible for creating the first modern banking institutions.

32) Jews created the first department stores in America in the nineteenth century. The Altmans, Gimbels, Kaufmanns, Lazaruses, Magnins, Mays, Strausses became leaders of major department stores. Julius Rosenwald revolutionized the way Americans purchased goods by improving Sears Roebuck’s mail order merchandising. Hart, Schaffner, Marx, Kuppenheimer and Levi Strauss became household names in men’s clothing.

33) Marc Chagall (originally Segal) a Russia Jew, is one of the great 20th century painters.

34) The fortune(s) of English Jews — Isaac Goldsmid, Nathan Rothschild, David Salomons, and Moses Montefiore — helped England become a world empire.

35) In 1918, Detroit, a Jew, Max Goldberg, opened the “first” commercial parking lot.

36) In 1910, a Jew, Louis Blaustein, and his son opened the “first” gas station, eventually founding the American Oil Company (AMOCO). The Blausteins became one of the richest oil families in the world.

37) A Jew, Dr. Albert Sabin, developed the first oral polio vaccine

38) A Jew, Steven Spielberg, is the most successful filmmaker since the advent of film