Jewish Contributions to Humanity
# in a series
Two Jews Who
Revolutionized
Information.
New Tradition
Jewish Ferndale’s public menorah
promotes environmental ideals.
KERI GUTEN COHEN STORY DEVELOPMENT EDITOR
J
to encourage discussion of Jewish
ewish Ferndale is celebrating
ideals of how the physical world can
Chanukah this year with a new
promote spiritual growth. We feel
menorah on the front lawn made
that David Brown has captured those
by David Brown of Detroit.
ideals.”
“Last spring, Rabbi [Herschel]
Brown has worked with
Finman said, ‘We’d like a
catalpa before. In his woods,
big menorah to go out-
he cut back some dense
side made of recycled,
growth, leaving a cleared
reused material.’”
center, then he wove catalpa
Brown wanted to use
branches together to form a
natural materials for
sukkah out of living trees.
the menorah, so he did
“Look to nature and see
research on the trees on
what exists and how you
his property in Detroit,
can make use of it rather
where he and his,
than force nature to fit your
wife, Sky, run Kibbutz
needs,” he said.
Detropia, a learning
“This is the first large pub-
center with a decidedly
lic menorah I’ve made. It’s
environment-friendly
very, very heavy and prob-
mission.
ably will live there all year
He found catalpa to
long,” said Brown, who has
be the most rot-resistant
taught art at several syna-
— and he had plenty to
gogues — most notably Shir
choose from. Carefully
Tikvah in Troy — where rit-
selecting branches to
ual objects have been made
form nine arms, Brown
with natural materials, such
stripped them of bark
as candlesticks and small
and fashioned a menorah
from the natural wood.
TOP TO BOTTOM: The new chanukiahs out of branches.
At a menorah lighting at
Then he fitted each arm
public menorah at Jewish
Ferndale debuted this
Jewish Ferndale, Brown also
with an energy-efficient
Chanukah; David Brown
breathed fire for the crowd.
LED bulb that flickers
constructed the menorah Hazon’s Topsy-Turvy Bus,
realistically like a flame.
from catalpa branches;
fueled by used vegetable oil,
“A major emphasis at
David Brown’s sukkah in was there — and Brown had
Jewish Ferndale is pro-
the woods made of live
painted the mural inside. He
moting the principles of
catalpa branches .
also teaches about the bus
environmentalism and
and its alternative fuel.
sustainability,” Finman
Next up for the Browns and Kibbutz
said. “The new menorah promotes
Detropia — tapping maple trees in late
local sustainability and art. We hope
winter and teaching about it. ■
the menorah will be a talking point
Mark Zuckerberg
Dov Moran
MARK ZUCKERBERG (1984-).
b. White Plains, New York.
Co-founder of Facebook.
The co-founder of the world’s largest social network, Facebook, Mark
Zuckerberg has revolutionized how humans communicate, becoming one
of the world’s richest men in the process. Born and raised in New York,
Zuckerberg showed an interest in computer programming from an early age.
His father, Edward, nurtured his son’s talent, hiring a software developer to
tutor his son. Throughout middle school and high school, Zuckerberg designed
software and video games as a hobby. By the time he began at Harvard,
Zuckerberg had a reputation as a programming wunderkind. He and three
other students launched several early iterations of Facebook (CourseMatch,
Facemash, Thefacebook) that served as quasi-social networks for students at
Harvard and other Ivy League schools. As a sophomore, Zuckerberg dropped
out of Harvard to focus on his project full-time, and moved to Silicon Valley.
There, Peter Thiel became an early investor into Facebook, and in 2006 the
company allowed anyone 13 or older with an email address to create an
account. Investments poured in from venture capitalists, and even Microsoft.
By April 2009 the company reached half-a-billion users, and two years
later it reached one trillion monthly page views. Becoming the most prolific
medium for enabling people and businesses to communicate with each other
from anywhere in the world, Facebook went public in February 2012, with a
valuation of $104 billion. Later that year the company announced that it had
one billion active monthly users. Today, Facebook is one of the world’s largest
corporations, employs nearly 20,000 people, and may soon be able to count
one-third of the world’s population as active monthly users.
DOV MORAN (1955-). b. Ramat Gan, Israel.
The Consensus Rabbi.
A graduate of the Technion Institute of Technology and commander of the
Israeli Navy’s advanced microprocessor department, Dov Moran’s invention
of the USB flash drive forever changed how humans store and transfer
information. After leaving the navy, in 1989 Moran founded M-Systems in Kfar
Saba. His company released the first flash drive, DiskOnChip, in 1995, and
the first thumb drive, DiskOnKey, in 2000. The latter’s performance was about
10 times faster than that of a floppy disk, and it had five times the storage
capacity. IBM began selling Moran’s invention to North American consumers
in late 2000, and six years later, Moran’s main competitor, SanDisk, bought
M-Systems for $1.6 billion—the third largest acquisition in Israel’s history.
Original Research by Walter L. Field Sponsored by Irwin S. Field Written by Jared Sichel
jn
December 13 • 2018
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