Straus was the youngest son of Lazarus
Straus, founder of the R.H. Macy depart-
ment store chain. While his brothers were
active in the business, Oscar preferred pol-
itics. After working on Grover Cleveland's
successful bid for the presidency, he was
named minister (later ambassador) to
Turkey.
Oscar Straus was a devoted pacifist
who worked tirelessly for the establish-
ment of a political body that would me-
diate international disputes. A founder
of the American Jewish Committee
and the first president of the American
Jewish Historical Society, he also
served as U.S. secretary of commerce and
labor.
He was the little flower, a much-loved
politician and the perfect man to head
New York City, with its impressive Ital-
ian and Jewish communities.
Fiorello La Guardia was born to a
Jewish mother and an Italian-Catholic fa-
ther. Naturally, they raised him to be a
Protestant.
La Guardia's career began when he was
20, at which time he was appointed U.S.
consul to Fiume, Italy. In 1907 he returned
to the United States, where he was an in-
terpreter at Ellis Island. He was especially
equipped to help Jewish immigrants not
only because of his mother, but because
he was fluent in Yiddish.
In 1916, La Guardia was elected to Con-
gress by his largely Jewish and Italian dis-
trict. He held various governmental posts,
including three terms as mayor of New
York.
La Guardia spent much of his political
life fighting corruption. He also brought
a great deal to the city in terms of parks,
schools and new roads. And he remained,
throughout his life, especially sympa-
thetic to Jews. In Congress, he sponsored
a resolution that called on the United
States to oppose anti-Semitic actions in
Poland, and after World War II he came
to the aid of many Jewish refugees.
Her name is most familiar was an au-
thor, but Grace Paley also was a leading
peace activist.
Born in 1922, her straightforward,
sometimes almost brutal writing about
life in inner-city New York earned her nu-
merous accolades. But Paley, born Grace
Goodside, was most committed to social
issues.
In 1978, for example, she was one of
11 protestors who walked onto the lawn
at the White House. Carrying a banner
that read, "No Nuclear Weapons! No Nu-
clear Power! US or USSR," the protes-
tors were arrested. Paley also has
participated in many vigils and demon-
strations on behalf of civil rights. She ex-
plained: "I always assumed that's what
Jews were about."
William Kristol, born in 1953, is a rare
breed: a prominent Jewish Republican.
The son of conservative spokesman Irv-
ing Kristol, William served as a top aid to
former Vice President Dan Quayle. Today
an outspoken commentator, he liked to ex-
plain his activism by saying, "My role is
not to hum quietly, but to change the
world."
SPORTS
Benny Leonard was not the kind of guy
you wanted to mess with. He was raised
on the Lower East Side, where he quick-
ly learned to fight to survive. Throughout
the early part of this century, authorities
regarded him one of the greatest light-
weight boxers of all time.
He was born in 1896, and by the time
he was a teen he was boxing for money,
which he turned over to his parents to help
support the family. What a nice boy.
Years later, Leonard was so good he was
bringing in $1 million annually (and this
was in the 1920s). He was the hero of the
Lower East Side, and even his foes in the
ring described him as a gentleman. be
in boxing until I breathe my last," he once
said. But Leonard's Mom was worried for
her son's safety, and she constantly begged
him to quit. When she became deathly
ill in 1925, Leonard did just that.
In later years Leonard tried, and failed,
to stage a comeback. He became a referee
until his death of a heart attack, appropri-
ately enough right in the ring, in 1947. He
is a member of the Boxing Hall of Fame.
When he wasn't working as a spy for
the OSS (the predecessor of the CIA), Mor-
ris "Moe" Berg, born in 1902 in New
York City, was a major league catcher who
reportedly inspired the phrase, "good field,
no hit." He also was a scholar, who held
degrees from Princeton University and
the Columbia University School of Law.
He spoke 12 languages.
He's a dentist today, but back in the
1960s and 1970s Mark Spitz, born in
1950 in California, was an Olympic champ
and continues to be regarded by many as
the greatest swimmer ever (move over,
Esther Williams!)
Honored as "World Swimmer of the
Year" in 1967, 1971 and 1972, Spitz set
33 international records, and was award-
ed seven gold medals at the 1972 Munich
Olympics.
And to think, he wanted to be a Hebrew
teacher! Barney Ross, (born Barnet Ra-
sofsky) born in 1909 in New York, fought
more than 250 amateur boxing games by
the time he was 18. He won lightweight
and junior welterweight crown, defending
his title five times. His life story became
the basis for the movie Monkey on my
Back, detailing his addiction to drugs
which began after he was wounded in
World War II.
Believe it or not, there were a number
of great Jewish bowlers. Sylvia Wene
Martin, born in 1928 in Philadelphia, was
a five-time All-America champ, while
Rose M. Weinstein of Wilkes Barre,
Penn., was All-America in 1962. (What's
in that water in Pennsylvania, anyway?)
Probably the most influential Jewish
bowler was Louis Stein (1858-1949), a
founder of the American Bowling Congress
who established the 16-pound limit on
bowling balls.
MEDICINE
If your teen-age daughter spends half her
life on the phone, you have Emile
Berliner to thank for keeping her
entertained so long. Berliner, born in
1851, invented a microphone without
which there would be no modern tele-
phone.
Berliner was an inventor from early
on, but certainly his greatest creation was
a microphone that could receive and send
voices through a wire. He sold the patent
to a little company called Bell Telephone.
(Unfortunately, few know about Berlin-
er's work in this area, but perhaps a fa-
mous film maker will make a movie
about it someday, and he could use the
line, "E.B., phone home.")
Berliner's next project was the
creation of a flat disk made of
rubber played on a musical ma-
chine called the gramophone. Of
course, it's difficult to find
records or record-players today,
but believe or not they once ex-
isted in many, many homes.
But perhaps Berliner's most
important contribution was his
discovery that by scalding (lat-
er, pasteurizing) milk, parents
could prevent many childhood
diseases. He formed the Society
for the Prevention of Sickness,
and convinced the Department
of Agriculture to establish milk
standards in 1907.
It's as easy as A, B1 and B2, C and D:
The man behind the vitamins was one
Casimir Funk, a
native of Poland who
immigrated to the
United States in
1915.
Funk was study-
ing beriberi when he
discovered a sub-
stance which pre-
vented the disease.
He called it "vita-
mine" (vitamin B).
Funk later estab-
lished his own foun-
dation for medical
research and wrote
numerous articles on
biochemical issues.
He was the first to
identify and advocate
the value not only of
vitamin B, but of vit-
amins A and C, as well. Children ever
since have been healthier because of his
discovery, though the horrid taste of cer-
tain vitamin pills often leaves them in
a funk.
Issachar Zacharie was a man who
truly cared for the sole of one of this coun-
try's greatest presidents, Abraham Lin-
coln.
Born in 1827, Zacharie was Lincoln's
chiropodist — and also his spy.
A native of England, Zacharie had
clients including Henry Clay and John
C. Calhoun before he began caring for the
president's feet in 1861. The two soon
formed a close friendship. Two years af-
ter they met, Lincoln sent Zacharie to
New Orleans, asking him to report back
on the Confederate military leadership
there. Later, Zacharie represented the
president in secret meetings with Con-
federate leaders Jefferson Davis and Ju-
dah Benjamin.
When newspapers learned of Dr.
Zacharie's political intrigue they pre-
dictably had a field day. One paper de-
scribed him as having "enjoyed Mr.
Lincoln's confidence perhaps more than
any other private individual...He was
courted, feted, flattered by high officials
because he was regarded as standing so
high in the graces of the President who
has often left his business apartment to
spend his evenings in the parlor of the
famous bunionist."
Gertrude Elion, of New York City,
was the first woman ever named to the
National Inventors Hall of Fame. She
also received the 1989 Nobel Prize for
Physiology and Medicine for her work
that led to creating numerous drugs used
in fighting leukemia.
He began his research in 1926 in New
York, continued it in London, then re-
turned to the United States where in
1961 Albert Sabin announced the cre-
ation of an oral polio vaccine. Thanks to
this discovery, polio has virtually been
eliminated.
Throughout his life, Sabin focused his
work on resistance to viruses and infec-
tious diseases. In World War II, he served
as an officer with the Surgeon General
of the United States,
where he researched
epidemics and their
possible impact on
the U.S. military.
Sabin was active in
numerous Jewish
causes, including serv-
ing on the board of
governors of both the
Hebrew University
and the Weizmann
Institute of Science,
and with the Tech-
nion. He later emi-
grated from the
United States to Is-
rael, where he was
president of the Weiz-
mann Institute of Sci-
ence.
CONTRIBUTIONS page 56
55