Jewish Trivia
(You may or may not know - Enjoy!)
The Roosevelts were Jewish Dutch, arriving in NYC in 1682 (Originally named Claes Rosenvelt before name change to Nicholas Roosevelt) Sarah Delano, FDR's mother, was descended from Sephardic Jews.
Joseph Stalin was originally named Joseph David Djugashvili (translating into "son of a Jew.") As well, all 3 of the women he married were Jewish.
Dwight Eisenhower's father was a Swedish Jew and was so identified in the West Point Yearbook of 1915.
INTERESTING JEWISH FACTS
1. Lillian Friedman married Cruz Rivera. They named their baby Geraldo
Miguel Rivera (Funny, it doesn't sound Jewish.) Since, according to
Jewish law, anyone born to a Jewish mother is Jewish, Geraldo Rivera is Jewish. As were, among others: Fiorello Laguardia, Winston Churchill and Cary Grant, as explained below.
2. Fiorello Laguardia's mother's name was Jacobson. His father was not Jewish. Laguardia spoke seven languages -- including Hebrew and Yiddish - fluently.
3. Winston Churchill's mother's name was Jenny Jerome.
4. Cary Grant's mother, Elsie, was Jewish. His father, Elias Leach, was not. Grant's original name was Archibald Alexander Leach. (Robin Leach is his first cousin).
5. Peter Sellers' mother, Margaret Marks, was Jewish. His father, Bill Sellers, was Protestant. Peter's real name is Richard Henry Sellers.
6. David Bowie's mother is Jewish, his father is not. One of Bowie 's album covers discusses his Jewish ancestry. His real name: David Stenton Haywood Jones.
7. Robert DeNiro's mother is Jewish; his father is not.
8. Shari Belafonte's mother is Jewish. Her father, Harry, has a Jewish grandfather.
9. Olivia Newton John's Jewish grandfather was a Nobel Prize winning physicist.
10. Harrison Ford's mother is Russian Jewish, his father is Irish Catholic.
ALWAYS GOOD TO KNOW AND REMEMBER!
Fact: The first theater to be used solely for the showing of motion pictures
was built by a Jew (Adolf Zukor).
Fact: The first full-length sound picture, The Jazz Singer was produced
by the Jewish Samuel L. Goldwyn & Louis B. Mayer (MGM).
Fact: A Jew (Dr. Abraham Waksman) coined the term antibiotics.
Fact: A Polish Jew (Casimir Funk) who pioneered a new field of medical research gave us a word now common in our language -- vitamins.
Fact: The first successful operation for appendicitis was performed by a Jewish surgeon (Dr. Simon Baruch)
Fact: The doctor (Dr. Abraham Jacobi) hailed as America 's father of pediatrics was a Jew.
Fact: Until a Jewish doctor (Dr. Siccary) showed differently, Americans believed the tomato was poisonous.
Fact: Jewish Levi "Levi's" Strauss (inventor of jeans) is the largest clothing retailer in the world.
Fact: 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.
Fact: 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.
Fact: Jewish Louis B. Mayer (MGM) created the idea for the Oscar.
Fact: European Jews are the founding fathers of all the Hollywood Studios.
Fact: Jews comprise a mere 1/4 of 1% (13 million) of the population (6 billion).
Fact: 99% of the world is non Jewish.
Fact: Three of greatest & most influential thinkers dominating the 20th century were Jewish - Einstein, Freud, and Marx.
Fact: The most popular selling Christmas song ("White Christmas") was written by a Jew. (Irving Berlin)
Fact: Of the 660 Nobel prizes from 1901 - 1990, 160 have been won by Jews. In the end, Jews win more Nobel prizes than any other ethnicity. They win 40x more than should be expected of them, based upon their small population numbers.
Fact: A Jew (Dr. Jonas Salk) is the creator of the first Polio Vaccine.
Fact: Jews (Hayam Solomon & Isaac Moses) are responsible for creating the first modern banking institutions.
Fact: Jews also created the first department stores of the 19th 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. (Let's not forget EJ Korvets - Eight Jewish Korean (war) Veterans).
Fact: Jewish Marc Chagall (born Segal , Russia ) is one of the great 20th century painters.
Fact: English Jewish financiers such as Isaac Goldsmid, Nathan Rothschild,
David Salomons, and Moses Montefiore, whose fortunes helped England become an empire.
Fact: In 1918, Detroit , a Jew (Max Goldberg) opened the "first" commercial
parking lot.
Fact: In 1910, a Jew (Louis Blaustein) and his son opened the "first" gas station, eventually founding AMOCO OIL. One of the richest oil families in the world.
Fact: A Jew (Dr. Albert Sabin) developed the first "oral polio vaccine."
Fact: A Jew (Steven Spielberg) is the most successful filmmaker since the advent of film.
Fact: A Jewish poet's (Emma Lazarus) famous poem, "give me your tired..your poor. your huddled masses," appears as the inscription on the Statue Of Liberty .
Fact: Jewish Harry Houdini (Weiss) is the father of Magic/Illusion.
Fact: Dr. Sigmund Freud (Jew) is the father of psychiatry.
Fact: Jewish Abraham is the father of the world's 3 major religions: Judaism, Christianity & Islam (ancestors of the Hebrew & Arabic peoples). Jesus (formerly known as "sweet Jewish Jesus") is still worshipped by billions.
Fact: Jews are the oldest of any people on earth still around with their national identity and cultural heritage intact.
Fact: George & Ira Gershwin & Irving Berlin (Jews) are three of the most prolific composers of the 20th century.
Fact: Isadore & Nathan Straus (Jews) - "Abraham & Straus," eventually became sole owners of Macy's (world's largest department store) in 1896.
Fact: Dr. Paul "magic bullet" Ehrlich (Jew) - physician, Nobel Prize in 1908 for curing syphilis.
Fact: Armand Hammer (Jew) - "Arm & Hammer," physician & businessman who originated the largest trade between U. S. and Russia.
Fact: Louis Santanel (Jew) was the financier who provided the funds for Columbus ' voyage to America .
Fact: Sherry Lansing (Jew) of Paramount Pictures, became the first woman president of a major Hollywood studio.
Fact: Flo Zigfield (Jew) of "Zigfield Follies," is the creator of American burlesque.
Fact: Jews were the brains behind the Confederacy:
Fact: Maj. Adolph Proskauer led the unit at Gettysburg .
Fact: Judah P. Benjamin held 4 cabinet positions: Attorney General, February 25 to September 17, 1861; Secretary of War, September 17, 1861, to March 18, 1862; acting Secretary of War, March 18 to 23, 1862 ; Secretary of State, March 18, 1862 , until
the end of the war) and was referred to as "the brains of the confederacy."
Fact: Rabbi Max Michelbacher was a confidant and spiritual advisor to General Robert E. Lee.
Fact: A great many Jews fought for the Confederacy, and the overwhelming were recent immigrants from Germany & East Europe who felt they were fighting for Democracy. They fought far out of proportion to their numbers.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
If You Were a Terrorist, How Would You Attack? - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog
If You Were a Terrorist, How Would You Attack? - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog
PLEASE DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!
My opinion: Great idea, wrong forum. This should be conducted on a secure network with professionals.
PLEASE DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!
My opinion: Great idea, wrong forum. This should be conducted on a secure network with professionals.
ISRAEL21c
ISRAEL21c
This is a very cool new technology...unfortunetly, it isn't yet compatible with mac...
Israeli start-up turns your email into a phone
By Nicky Blackburn August 26, 2007
Yoomba CEO Elad Hemar: 'We've got to a situation where people have to manage four separate identities and four separate address books just to talk to 20 people. That's not instant communication.'
Israel lauded for pioneering work in VoIP
A triple play for Israeli IPTV
Yoomba
Phoning from your email? Elad Hemar admits that at first it sounds ludicrous. But this is exactly the service Yoomba, the Israeli company Hemar cofounded and launched just a few weeks ago, has developed.
Subscribers who use the Yoomba online service can make web-based calls or instant-message anyone with an email address. It doesn't matter if the user is a member of Skype, or Yahoo, or Google, all you need is an email address and a telephone headset. The service is easy to use, and free, whether you're calling your neighbor or your Aunt Gladys in Australia. Missed calls go to voicemail.
"It won't be long before you hear people saying 'Give me a call on my email'," says 36-year-old CEO Hemar. "If you Yoomba enable your email, it becomes like a phone number. You don't have to register a new identity, or learn new applications. The software works in Outlook, Outlook Express, Microsoft Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and Google. You just click a button and make the call to anyone, even if they don't have Yoomba software. It's as simple as sending an email."
While web-based calling and instant messaging are now ubiquitous on the Net, the current systems are closed. If you belong to Skype, you can only speak to Skype users. The same goes for every other service.
While Internet users have been campaigning for interoperability for over 10 years; the portals, whose main interest is obviously to bring as many users to their domain as possible for business reasons, have resisted all efforts and instant communication has remained closed.
It was frustration with this closed communications experience that drove Hemar and co-founder Ronen Babayoff, to look for an alternative. "It just doesn't make sense to continue in this way," Hemar tells ISRAEL21c. "People are tied to specific closed portals. If they want to talk to someone on Gmail, they have to register on Gmail, the same is true with Yahoo or any of the other portals. There is a lack of immediacy here. People can't communicate freely. We've got to a situation where people have to manage four separate identities and four separate address books just to talk to 20 people. That's not instant communication."
With this in mind the two men examined today's two most successful modes of communication - email, and the mobile phone - to see if they could repeat this experience with web-based calling.
"With email and the mobile phone communication is direct. With e-mail all you need to know is the e-mail address and you can send a message. The user replies with a click of a button. The same is true of the mobile phone. You can call anyone you want, and they reply instantly," says Hemar. "We wanted to provide that same flexibility on the web."
Yoomba was founded in 2006, and the project was initially self-funded using money Hemar and Babayoff raised from their previous company, Informative.com, an interactive marketing solutions company based in the bay area of San Francisco. At the start of 2007, the company closed a round of financing with two large VC companies, Global Catalyst Partners and US Venture Partners. Hemar declines to give details of how much the round was worth, but says it was sizable. It's thought to be in the region of several million dollars.
"It's an impressive round of financing for a pre-launch company in Israel," admits Hemar.
The technology was launched in July at a conference in San Francisco, and just two weeks later had managed to attract subscribers from 55 countries around the world including India, Brazil, France, Italy and the US. Subscriber numbers have not yet been released, but Hemar says he plans to announce them in an "orderly fashion".
Yoomba built its software by laying a peer-to-peer topology over the e-mail network. "It's like a parallel layer over the existing network," explains Hemar.
The program also brings all your e-mail connections into one place. "We call it the empty fridge problem," says Hemar. "When you go to buy a fridge you are excited to use it. You bring it home, install it, and when you open it up, it's empty. It's the same with all these communication networks. You register, and do the application, open it up and it's empty. You have to start adding users within the closed application. We don't do that. We load everything up so that when you open the program, it's already there."
The program requires Active-X to run efficiently, though users who prefer to download the program traditionally can do so. Hemar insists emphatically that there is no spyware or adware added. "We only have good stuff. Babayoff and I are both Internet users like everyone else, and we wouldn't do to our users what we wouldn't want done to ourselves. We hate spyware and adware and don't want to do them."
There were some user complaints that the program spams a user's e-mail address book, but Hemar refutes this. "We never send out anything behind the scenes. We want to make things as easy as possible for our users, and if we keep repeating 'Are you sure you want to send', people will get fed up. They like things to be fast, easy and immediate. On the other hand we don't send out invitations without user approval. The people who complained probably just didn't read the text.
"In the first week, we had over 1,000 blogs, and 96 percent of that was positive. There were a few complaints, but when you have hundreds of thousands of users, and probably millions in the future, there will always be a few that are unhappy. We are, however, fixing and improving things all the time. We didn't want our users to be upset."
Today Yoomba employs 20 people, most of whom work out of the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California. There is also staff at the company's R&D offices in Herzliya in Israel.
Hemar's goal is to keep Yoomba free of charge. "This is what users want and the way the Internet works," he explains. In future, the company will explore sponsorship, advertising and other business models. "If it grows properly we will find a way to monetize around it," says Hemar.
As for the future, well Hemar is cagey. He doesn't want to say too much. He tells a story instead. When the program was launched in July, an Israeli journalist came to him and asked how on earth he had managed to keep the earlier round of fund-raising out of what is a notoriously gossip-ridden press. "It was a good investment but we found a way to focus on the important stuff," says Hemar. "We really want to focus on building a great product and a great experience for users, and that's the important thing here. Not how much money we raised or the number of subscribers, or what we are going to do next."
He does give a hint, however. "In the future we will be able to do more than just phone or text. Next year I see the announcement of new services and new ideas. We are building Yoomba to be an Internet company, not a telephony company," says Hemar. "This is the new Internet. It's not the separate, walled-off Internet of the past. We've taken the only universal online network - the email - and built our service on top."
This is a very cool new technology...unfortunetly, it isn't yet compatible with mac...
Israeli start-up turns your email into a phone
By Nicky Blackburn August 26, 2007
Yoomba CEO Elad Hemar: 'We've got to a situation where people have to manage four separate identities and four separate address books just to talk to 20 people. That's not instant communication.'
Israel lauded for pioneering work in VoIP
A triple play for Israeli IPTV
Yoomba
Phoning from your email? Elad Hemar admits that at first it sounds ludicrous. But this is exactly the service Yoomba, the Israeli company Hemar cofounded and launched just a few weeks ago, has developed.
Subscribers who use the Yoomba online service can make web-based calls or instant-message anyone with an email address. It doesn't matter if the user is a member of Skype, or Yahoo, or Google, all you need is an email address and a telephone headset. The service is easy to use, and free, whether you're calling your neighbor or your Aunt Gladys in Australia. Missed calls go to voicemail.
"It won't be long before you hear people saying 'Give me a call on my email'," says 36-year-old CEO Hemar. "If you Yoomba enable your email, it becomes like a phone number. You don't have to register a new identity, or learn new applications. The software works in Outlook, Outlook Express, Microsoft Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and Google. You just click a button and make the call to anyone, even if they don't have Yoomba software. It's as simple as sending an email."
While web-based calling and instant messaging are now ubiquitous on the Net, the current systems are closed. If you belong to Skype, you can only speak to Skype users. The same goes for every other service.
While Internet users have been campaigning for interoperability for over 10 years; the portals, whose main interest is obviously to bring as many users to their domain as possible for business reasons, have resisted all efforts and instant communication has remained closed.
It was frustration with this closed communications experience that drove Hemar and co-founder Ronen Babayoff, to look for an alternative. "It just doesn't make sense to continue in this way," Hemar tells ISRAEL21c. "People are tied to specific closed portals. If they want to talk to someone on Gmail, they have to register on Gmail, the same is true with Yahoo or any of the other portals. There is a lack of immediacy here. People can't communicate freely. We've got to a situation where people have to manage four separate identities and four separate address books just to talk to 20 people. That's not instant communication."
With this in mind the two men examined today's two most successful modes of communication - email, and the mobile phone - to see if they could repeat this experience with web-based calling.
"With email and the mobile phone communication is direct. With e-mail all you need to know is the e-mail address and you can send a message. The user replies with a click of a button. The same is true of the mobile phone. You can call anyone you want, and they reply instantly," says Hemar. "We wanted to provide that same flexibility on the web."
Yoomba was founded in 2006, and the project was initially self-funded using money Hemar and Babayoff raised from their previous company, Informative.com, an interactive marketing solutions company based in the bay area of San Francisco. At the start of 2007, the company closed a round of financing with two large VC companies, Global Catalyst Partners and US Venture Partners. Hemar declines to give details of how much the round was worth, but says it was sizable. It's thought to be in the region of several million dollars.
"It's an impressive round of financing for a pre-launch company in Israel," admits Hemar.
The technology was launched in July at a conference in San Francisco, and just two weeks later had managed to attract subscribers from 55 countries around the world including India, Brazil, France, Italy and the US. Subscriber numbers have not yet been released, but Hemar says he plans to announce them in an "orderly fashion".
Yoomba built its software by laying a peer-to-peer topology over the e-mail network. "It's like a parallel layer over the existing network," explains Hemar.
The program also brings all your e-mail connections into one place. "We call it the empty fridge problem," says Hemar. "When you go to buy a fridge you are excited to use it. You bring it home, install it, and when you open it up, it's empty. It's the same with all these communication networks. You register, and do the application, open it up and it's empty. You have to start adding users within the closed application. We don't do that. We load everything up so that when you open the program, it's already there."
The program requires Active-X to run efficiently, though users who prefer to download the program traditionally can do so. Hemar insists emphatically that there is no spyware or adware added. "We only have good stuff. Babayoff and I are both Internet users like everyone else, and we wouldn't do to our users what we wouldn't want done to ourselves. We hate spyware and adware and don't want to do them."
There were some user complaints that the program spams a user's e-mail address book, but Hemar refutes this. "We never send out anything behind the scenes. We want to make things as easy as possible for our users, and if we keep repeating 'Are you sure you want to send', people will get fed up. They like things to be fast, easy and immediate. On the other hand we don't send out invitations without user approval. The people who complained probably just didn't read the text.
"In the first week, we had over 1,000 blogs, and 96 percent of that was positive. There were a few complaints, but when you have hundreds of thousands of users, and probably millions in the future, there will always be a few that are unhappy. We are, however, fixing and improving things all the time. We didn't want our users to be upset."
Today Yoomba employs 20 people, most of whom work out of the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California. There is also staff at the company's R&D offices in Herzliya in Israel.
Hemar's goal is to keep Yoomba free of charge. "This is what users want and the way the Internet works," he explains. In future, the company will explore sponsorship, advertising and other business models. "If it grows properly we will find a way to monetize around it," says Hemar.
As for the future, well Hemar is cagey. He doesn't want to say too much. He tells a story instead. When the program was launched in July, an Israeli journalist came to him and asked how on earth he had managed to keep the earlier round of fund-raising out of what is a notoriously gossip-ridden press. "It was a good investment but we found a way to focus on the important stuff," says Hemar. "We really want to focus on building a great product and a great experience for users, and that's the important thing here. Not how much money we raised or the number of subscribers, or what we are going to do next."
He does give a hint, however. "In the future we will be able to do more than just phone or text. Next year I see the announcement of new services and new ideas. We are building Yoomba to be an Internet company, not a telephony company," says Hemar. "This is the new Internet. It's not the separate, walled-off Internet of the past. We've taken the only universal online network - the email - and built our service on top."
Monday, August 20, 2007
Quote of the Century
Charles de Gaulle is reputed to have remarked when his aides told him he could not resign as President of France because he was the indispensable man:
"Mon ami, the cemeteries are full of indispensable men."
Sunday, August 19, 2007
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