Merry Christmas, Goodwill and Peace on Earth

From the pedestrian to the sublime, Jews have made an inordinate impact on this world we inhabit.  As musicians, artists, scientists, philosophers, statesman, medal healers; in every sphere of discovery, performance, and human relations.

Yet throughout history from its recorded beginnings to the present time Jews have represented the ultimate scapegoat for whatever seems to go awry in this world, the perennial pariah.  There are only 13.5-million Jews in a greater population of 7-billion human beings populating Earth.

But although Jews represent a mere 0.2% of the world population their influence has been quite incredible, substantial, meaningful and ongoing.

From the time of Abraham, to Moses and Jesus, Jewish influence in world affairs, on religion, on politics and the philosophy of existence has been nothing short of phenomenal.  From the early Christians, who were all Jews breaking away from what was then the prevailing dominant Judaic sects of the Biblical era, to their successors, Spinoza, Maimonides, Marx, Einstein, Freud, Salk, Jewish domination in their fields of influence has been globe-sweeping.

• Of Nobel laureates Jews have taken 13 prizes in Literature, representing 12% of the total endowed.  
• Of Chemistry 33 Jews were recognized, representing 20% of that class.  
• In Economics, 29 Jews were given recognition, representing 41% in total of that discipline.  
• In World Peace 9 Jews have been recognized, representing 9% of that category.  
• In Medicine, 53 Jews have been given prizes, representing 26% of that profession.  
• And in Physics, 50 Jews were singled out as Nobel winners, representing 26% of the total handed out through the Nobel Prize history of recognition of superior intellectual achievements.

In Biblical times most Jews refused to leave their traditional worship of Judaism to join the new Christian movement, sanctifying a Jewish prophet as the son of God.  They were persecuted for that, and were forever after considered to be "Christ killers"; to this present day children of Jewish parentage may have that epithet hurled after them.

In the year 610 when the Prophet Mohammed began  his campaign to spread the word and surrender to Islam (modelling his new religion after the original precepts and precursors of monotheism), inviting Jews to join him, he turned to slaughtering Jews an masse, infuriated at their refusal.  The latest such campaign, newly re-invigorated as a modern-day radical Islamist Jihad continues to target Jews and infidels, considered unworthy of consideration as equals in any manner to Muslims.

During the Reformation, Martin Luther felt he could convince Jews to convert to his brand of Christianity; when they declined, he embarked on a vicious campaign of slander matched only by the fascist reign of Nazism in World War II Germany.

The Inquisition of the Roman Catholic era of the 12th Century encompassed most of Central and Western Europe with Jews singled out for persecution, arrest, torture and murder through their famous auto de fes.  Jews who relented for fear of their lives, adopting Catholicism and forswearing Judaism were still banished and held in contempt.  Jews who had converted publicly, but practised Judaism secretly in 15th Century Catholic Spain as Conversos were, under Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, sought out, and subjected to even more dreadful atrocities than elsewhere in Europe, culminating in the total expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal in 1492.

The dread events of the Holocaust wherein six million Jews perished through a concerted, elaborate, state-engineered campaign of extermination represented the culmination of the persecution of Jews throughout the known history of humankind.

Below, a listing of influential Jews in history:

The list below is from the book The Jewish 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Jews of all Time (Citadel Press Book, 1994), written by Michael Shapiro, a noted composer who lives in New York.

Rank	Name	Lived	Description
1	Moses	13th Cen. C.E.
2	Jesus of Nazareth	ca. 4 B.C.E. - ca. 30 C.E.
3	Albert Einstein	1879-1955	physicist
4	Sigmund Freud	1856-1936	psychiatrist
5	Abraham	ca. 20th-19th cen B.C.E.; according to the Bible, 1813-1638 B.C.E.
6	Saul of Tarsus (Saint Paul)	4 - 64 C.E.
7	Karl Marx	1818-1883	philosopher
8	Theodor Herzl	1860-1904	writer
9	Mary	b. ca. 20 B.C.E.
10	Baruch de Spinoza	1632-1677	philosopher
11	David	fl. 1000 B.C.E.
12	Anne Frank	1929-1945	diarist
13	The Prophets	Biblical times
14	Judas Iscariot	ca. 4 B.C.E. - ca. 30 C.E.
15	Gustav Mahler	1860-1911	composer
16	Maimonides	1135-1204	theologian
17	Niels Bohr	1885-1962	physicist
18	Moses Mendelssohn	1729-1786	philosopher
19	Paul Ehrlich	1854-1915	medical scientist
20	Rashi	1040-1105	rabbinical commentator
21	Benjamin Disraeli	1804-1881	politician
22	Franz Kafka	1883-1924	author
23	David Ben-Gurion	1886-1973	founder of Israel
24	Hillel	ca. 70 B.C.E. - 10 C.E.	theologian
25	John Von Neumann	1903-1957	mathematician
26	Simon Bar Kokhba	fl. 135 C.E.	general, leader
27	Marcel Proust	1871-1922	novelist
28	Mayer Rothschild	1744-1812	financier
29	Solomon	ca. 990 - ca. 933 B.C.E.
30	Heinrich Heine	1797-1856	poet
31	Selman Waksman	1888-1973	developed antibiotics
32	Giacomo Meyerbeer	1791-1864	created grand opera
33	Isaac Luria	1534-1572	kabbalist
34	Gregory Pincus	1903-1967	developed birth control pill
35	Leon Trotsky	1879-1940	facilitator of the Russian Revolution
36	David Ricardo	1772-1823	founded classical school of economics
37	Alfred Dreyfus	1859-1935	center of 1895 Dreyfus affair in Paris
38	Leo Szilard	1898-1964	physicist; cyberneticist
39	Mark Rothko	1903-1970	painter
40	Ferdinand Cohn	1828-1898	bacteriologist
41	Samuel Gompers	1850-1924	labor leader
42	Gertrude Stein	1874-1946	author
43	Albert Michelson	1852-1931	physicist
44	Philo Judaeus	ca. 20 B.C.E. - 40 C.E.	philosopher
45	Golda Meir	1898-1978	prime minister of Israel
46	The Vilna Gaon	1720-1797	rabbinical scholar
47	Henri Bergson	1859-1941	philosopher
48	The Baal Shem Tov	1700-1790	religious reformer
49	Felix Mendelssohn	1809-1847	musician
50	Louis B. Mayer	1885-1957	motion picture pioneer
51	Judah Halevy	ca. 1075-1141	philosopher and poet
52	Haym Salomon	1740-1785	Revolutionary War patriot
53	Johanan ben Zakkai	ca. 80 C.E.	general, leader
54	Arnold Schoenberg	1874-1951	composer
55	Emile Durkheim	1858-1917	sociologist
56	Betty Friedan	1921-	feminist; founder of NOW
57	David Sarnoff	1891-1971	broadcaster
58	Lorenzo Da Ponte	1749-1838	Mozart's librettist
59	Julius Rosenwald	1862-1932	philanthropist
60	Casimir Funk *	1884-1967	discoverer of vitamins
61	George Gershwin	1898-1937	composer
62	Chaim Weizmann	1874-1952	first president of Israel
63	Franz Boas	1858-1942	anthropologist
64	Sabbatai Zevi	1626-1676	religious leader
65	Leonard Bernstein	1918-1990	musician
66	Flavius Josephus	ca. 38-ca. 100 C.E.	historian
67	Walter Benjamin	1892-1940	literary critic, journalist, philosopher
68	Louis Brandeis	1856-1941	jurist
69	Emile Berliner	1851-1929	inventor
70	Sarah Bernhardt	1844-1923	actress
71	Levi Strauss	1829-1902	clothier
72	Nahmanides	1195-1270	scholar
73	Menachem Begin	1913-1992	politician
74	Anna Freud	1895-1982	psychologist
75	Queen Esther	5th cen. B.C.E.	Biblical queen
76	Martin Buber	1878-1965	philosopher, theologian, social activist
77	Jonas Salk	1914-	physician
78	Jerome Robbins	1918-	choreographer
79	Henry Kissinger	1923-	politician
80	Wilhelm Steinitz	ca. 1835-1900	chess champion
81	Arthur Miller	1915-	playwright
82	Daniel Mendoza	1764-1836	boxer
83	Stephen Sondheim	1930-	writer of musicals
84	Emma Goldman	1869-1940	anarchist, feminist
85	Sir Moses Montefiore	1787-1885	leader
86	Jerome Kern	1885-1945	writer of musicals
87	Boris Pasternak	1890-1960	novelist, poet
88	Harry Houdini	1874-1926	magician
89	Edward Bernays	1981-	founder of public relations
90	Leopold Auer	1845-1930	violinist
91	Groucho Marx	1890-1977	comedian
92	Man Ray	1890-1976	artist
93	Henrietta Szold	1860-1945	founder of Hadassah
94	Benny Goodman	1909-1986	clarinetist and bandleader
95	Steven Spielberg	1947-	filmmaker
96	Marc Chagall	1887-1985	painter
97	Bob Dylan	1941-	musician
98	Sandy Koufax	1935-	baseball player
99	Bernard Berenson	1865-1959	art critic
100	Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster	b. 1914; 1914-1992	comics book artist/writer, creators of Superman