Jewish Contributions to Society

Considering that the Jewish people constitute a mere one-half of one percent of the world's population, Jewish contributions to religion, science, literature, music, medicine, finance, philosophy, entertainment etc., is staggering.

In the field of medicine alone, Jewish contributions are staggering and continue to be so. It was a Jew who created the first polio vaccine, who discovered insulin, who discovered that aspirin dealt with pain, who discovered chloral hydrate for convulsions, who discovered streptomycin, who discovered the origin and spread of infectious diseases, who invented the test for diagnosis of syphilis, who identified the first cancer virus, who discovered the cure for pellagra and added to the knowledge about yellow fever, typhoid, typhus, measles, diphtheria and influenza. Today, Israel, a nation only sixty years old, has emerged at the forefront of stem-cell research, which will, in the near future, give humanity unprecedented medical treatment for degenerative diseases.

There is a passage in the Talmud that says:

“We find in the case of Cain, who killed his brother, that it is written: The bloods of thy brother cry unto me: not the blood of thy brother, but the bloods of thy brother is said, that is, his blood and the blood of his potential descendants.” (Sanhedrin 37a, 37-38.)

Over the past 2,000 years, in particular, millions of Jews have been killed in Inquisitions, Pogroms, and more recently, the horror of the Holocaust. One wonders how much more humanity could have gained from the descendants of those murdered and their potential contributions to mankind.

Below is a short list of some of the most important contributions Jewish individuals have made to society.

• Albert Einstein - Physicist
• Jonas Salk - Created first Polio Vaccine
• Albert Sabin - Developed the oral vaccine for Polio
• Galileo - Discovered the speed of light
• Selman Waksman - Discovered Streptomycin. Coined the word 'antibiotic'.
• Gabriel Lipmann - Discovered color photography
• Baruch Blumberg - Discovered origin and spread of infectious diseases
• G. Edelman - Discovered the chemical structure of antibodies
• Briton Epstein - Identified first cancer virus
• Maria Meyer - Structure of atomic nuclei
• Julius Mayer - Discovered law of thermodynamics
• Sigmund Freud - Father of psychotherapy
• Christopher Columbus (Marano) - Discovered the Americas
• Benjamin Disraeli - Prime Minister of Great Britain 1804-1881
• Isaac Singer - Invented the sewing machine
• Levi Strauss - Largest manufacturer of denim jeans
• Joseph Pulitzer - Established 'Pulitzer Prize' for achievements in journalism, literature, music, and art