Facts & Trivia

Albert Von Tilzer (born Elias Gumbinsky) was born in Indianapolis to a Jewish family that immigrated from Poland. Von Tilzer wrote the music for many hit songs, most notably “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” He was born on the South Side of Indianapolis, close to Shapiros Deli at South Illinois and McCarty Streets. His family maintained a retail store on West Washington Street in Indianapolis.

La Porte, Indiana-born journalist and Notre Dame alum Frederic William Wile was one of the first to offer political commentary on the Radio, discussing President Calvin Coolidge on the Air in the 1920s.

Richard Morris Goldstein (April 11, 1927 – June 22, 2024) was an American radar astronomer and planetary scientist called “The Father of Radar Interferometry”. Goldstein was born in Indianapolis in 1927. He studied Electrical Engineering at Purdue. After working at his family’s furniture store for eleven years, he followed his brother (astronomer Samuel J. Goldstein, Jr.) to California and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Goldstein received the NASA Honors Award and the Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal in 2000. Asteroid 5393 is named 5393 Goldstein. He is also the father of Rabbi Lisa Goldstein.

Pearl Franklin, originally from Huntington, Indiana, where she was the only Jewish family at the time, was born in Czarist, Russia, and pursued a career in law after attending the University of Chicago and becoming a leader in the Jewish community from 1923 to 1930. She successfully expanded Hadassah in Chicago from 300 members to a 5,000-member organization, making it the most prominent Hadassah chapter in the United States. She was eventually elected Executive vice President of Hadassah Nationally. She worked with Henrietta Szold to rescue Jewish children from Nazi Germany in a Youth Aliyah program in 1937.

In 1950, Anne and Wolf Rosenblum gave birth to Gail Sue Rosenblum in Indianapolis, Indiana. She gained fame as Gaylen Ross, an American actress, writer, producer, and director who produced the award-winning film Killing Kasztner.” She also starred in films such as the 1978 Zombie horror cult Classic Dawn of the Dead.

Salvador Luria, an Italian microbiologist, was born in Turin, Italy, to a Sephardic family and won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1969. He came to America during the Holocaust. In 1947, he published a study on the effect of ultraviolet irradiation on bacteriophage multiplication. The Luria-Laterjet effect, named after him, demonstrated increased bacteriophage resistance to ultraviolet irradiation during early infection. His work also influenced the understanding of DNA’s central role in biology. Luria worked at Indiana University from 1943 to 1950, where his first graduate student was James D. Watson, who later co-discovered the structure of DNA with Francis Crick.

In 1924, the German government sent the dirigible (Zeppelin) LZ-3, one of the largest aircraft ever built, to the United States as part of World War I reparations. During its flight from Germany to New Jersey, two observers were from Indiana—Lieutenant Commander Sydney M. Kraus of Peru, Indiana, the son of Jewish immigrants, and Capt. George W. Steele. These two Hoosiers flew across the Atlantic Ocean before most Americans, including the famous Charles A. Lindbergh. Capt. George W. Steele, from Marion, Indiana, and son of a congressman, had a long naval career. He had been commissioned as an ensign in 1902 and served in various roles, including in the Asiatic fleet, at a recruiting station in Indianapolis, and on the USS Pennsylvania, a flagship of the Atlantic fleet. He later worked in the Division of Aviation and sailed in command of the Atlantic fleet’s Naval Air Detachment. After the flight, he became the airship Los Angeles commander and later led the Lakehurst station. Lieutenant Commander Sydney M. Kraus, a native of Peru, Indiana, also had a distinguished naval career. He became an ensign in 1910 and had risen to lieutenant commander by the time of the flight. He had served in Pacific waters and Asiatic areas. He held important positions, including heading the division in charge of aircraft power plant design in Washington and later becoming the head of the maintenance and procurement division of the Bureau of Aeronautics. Both men were graduates of the Naval Academy, had served overseas in World War I, and had been honored with the Legion of Honor by the French government. After arriving in the United States, the airship was renamed the Los Angeles and was based at Lakehurst. The Los Angeles completed 331 flights, totaling 4,398 hours, before being decommissioned in 1932 and dismantled in 1939.

Coach Bruce Pearl led Southern Indiana University to a Division II national championship in 1995. During that time, the National Association of Basketball Coaches named him Division II Coach of the Year.

Dr. Olga Pickman Feinberg (1889-1977) was one of the early female doctors in Gary, Indiana. A Jewish immigrant from Czarist Russia, she arrived in America via Bulgaria. Dr. Feinberg moved to Gary in the 1910s and later relocated to the British Mandate of Palestine in the 1920s. Dr. Feinberg’s story is remarkable. As a Jewish doctor in Jericho, she was the only physician serving the Arab residents during the turbulent years between the 1929 riots and the Great Arab Uprising from 1936 to 1939. Despite her dedication to Jericho’s residents and her relationships with notable Arab leaders such as Emir Abdullah from the other side of the Jordan River and King Fuad I of Egypt—both of whom she hosted—Dr. Feinberg faced significant challenges during the Arab Uprising. In September 1938, her home was burglarized and set on fire, resulting in the loss of nearly all her possessions and the grounds she had carefully tended. After this incident, Dr. Feinberg never returned to Jericho. She continued to provide medical care to Jewish communities in India and Aden, Yemen, where she played a crucial role in rescuing 4,000 to 5,000 Jews from Yemen, who flew to Israel and were under physical threat from Arab nationalist forces.

In 1982, Leonard Bernstein became the first fellow of Indiana University’s new Institute for Advanced Study in Bloomington. The university dean of the School of Music announced the fellowship, saying Bernstein’s “presence on campus as he completes an important composition would profoundly affect our entire academic community. ”

David Martin Shuster (July 22, 1967), a Jewish journalist born and raised in Bloomington, Indiana, is an American television journalist. Shuster previously served as principal anchor and managing editor for i24 News, as an anchor for MSNBC, and worked for Fox News and CNN.

In the early 1910s, Valparaiso University established the Jewish Students Society, recognized as the first known Jewish university organization in Indiana. Many of its members were recent immigrants from Czarist Russia who attended Valparaiso University, which was then referred to as the “Poor Man’s Harvard.” The Society was co-ed from its first formal meeting and had a Zionist orientation.

In early 1911, Jewish American philanthropist and owner of Sears, Julius Rosenwald, offered to contribute $25,000 toward constructing YMCAs for African-Americans in all cities. The communities needed to provide a matching share of $75,000. These facilities were necessary due to the Jim Crow segregation policies in the northern and southern states. As a result of the challenge grants, African-American YMCAs were built in 24 cities. In Indianapolis, two buildings were constructed for African Americans – one for men and another for women. Julius Rosenwald accepted several invitations to speak at the YMCA in the building he helped to build as a guest of honor. His close friend, Rabbi Morris Feurlicht, was also a guest speaker and involved in fundraising efforts for the African American community in Indianapolis.

In 1912, Henrietta Szold visited and spoke in Gary, Indiana, as one of the first destinations for recruiting members for the national Hadassah Zionist Women’s Organization, which she had just founded. At the time, she had family living in Gary and Valparaiso, Indiana.

In 1901, two Jewish brothers, Myer and Herbert Heller, developed a flower called “the American Beauty Rose.” This particular flower became a symbol of national prestige, with buds as big as goose eggs and more petals than any other flower. It was so popular that it was sold throughout the country. It even earned the city of New Castle the nickname “Rose City.” at one point, more than 100 greenhouses were operating in the city solely because of the famous flower.

As of October 1, 2023, Pearl Berg was 114 years old. Pearl Berg was the 10th oldest living human being in the world – the 3rd oldest living American – and was the oldest living Jew in the world – born on October 1, 1909, in Evansville, Indiana. She passed away in 2024 when she was the 9th oldest human being in the world.

Rene Dreyfus, a Jewish race car driver, fled Nazi-occupied France and went to the United States to participate in the 1940 Indianapolis 500 with his fellow Frenchman René Le Bègue. They both drove Maseratis, owned by Lucy O’Reilly Schell. Le Bègue qualified in 31st place, while Dreyfus was bumped and became the second alternate. On race day, they decided that both drivers would share driving duties, driving approximately 50 laps (125 miles) each. Le Bègue started the race and drove laps 1–50 and 101–150. Dreyfus took over for laps 51–100 and from 151 to the finish. They finished 10th, eight laps behind, and the race was stopped early due to rain after the first three finishers received the checkered flag.

Born in 1958 in Bloomington, Indiana, Judith Ellen Levy is an American lawyer who has served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan since 2014. With her confirmation and receiving of commission, she became the first openly lesbian federal judge in Michigan. One of her more notable rulings on November 10, 2021, was when she approved a $626 million settlement for the Flint water crisis victims.

A German-speaking Jewish Immigrant to Evansville, Indiana, Simon Hecht, prepared one of the first Jewish hymnals in the United States in 1877. He was also a Teacher and a Choir director and wrote numerous books about Hebrew and Jewish Music.

Lawrence Einhorn earned a B.S. from Indiana University Bloomington in 1965 and his M.D. from the University of Iowa in 1968. He completed his internship and residency at Indiana University Medical Center. In 2006, he became the first Lance Armstrong Foundation Professor of Oncology. Einhorn is also a member of the Experimental and Developmental Therapeutics Program at the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center in Indianapolis.

Before being elected as the first Jew from Indiana to Congress in 1917, Milton Kraus was the first president of the Great Western Automobile Company in Peru, Indiana. The company started producing automobiles in 1910. Kraus finally left the company in 1914, and it eventually closed in 1916.

Governor Alvin Peterson Hovey, a General in the Civil War, had his record of blatant anti-Semitism during the Civil War become a campaign issue when he ran for governor of Indiana and won in 1888. Surprisingly, Rabbi Myer Messing controversially came to his defense, believing that Governor Hovey had made positive strides to move beyond his terrible conduct during the Civil War.

Born to a Jewish family in Michigan City, Indiana, Allan Henry Spear (June 24, 1937 – October 11, 2008), Spear became a civil rights activist and scholar of African American history. He became involved in the American Civil Rights Movement at a young age. In 1955, when he was eighteen, he visited a friend in Mississippi. While he was there, another teenager visiting from the north, Emmett Till, was brutally kidnapped and killed in an infamous incident of racist violence. He became a member of the NAACP in college. Spear was also a politician and educator when he moved to Minnesota. He served almost thirty years in the Minnesota Senate, including nearly a decade as president. Spear came out on December 9, 1974, and was one of the first openly gay Americans serving in elected office. His coming out drew national attention.

Elwood Mead (January 16, 1858 – January 26, 1936) was a professor, politician, and engineer who headed the United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) from 1924 until he died in 1936. During his tenure, he oversaw some of the Bureau of Reclamation’s most complex projects, including the Hoover, Grand Coulee, and Owyhee dams. Mead was born in Patriot, Indiana, and graduated from Purdue with a Bachelor of Science in 1882. He worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Indianapolis for seven months and departed for Fort Collins, Colorado, by the end of the year. In 1923 and again in 1927, he went to the British Mandate of Palestine to help the Zionists develop irrigation and development plans, working with David Ben Gurion and Chaim Weitzmann. His essential research determined that the Land could safely absorb much more immigration with irrigation efforts and that agriculture could be extended in the British Mandate of Palestine, laying the groundwork for agriculture in the modern State of Israel.

In the mid-1930s, William “Willie” Silberstein became the first known Jewish basketball player at Indiana University Bloomington. Initially from Brooklyn, New York, he hesitated to move to the Midwest. Willie had to adapt to Indiana University’s style of basketball, which was quite different from how he played back in New York. He played starting forward for the 1936–37 Indiana Hoosiers men’s basketball team. The Hoosiers finished the regular season with an overall record of 13–7 and a conference record of 6–6, finishing sixth in the Big Ten Conference.  Silberstein faced social exclusion on campus, especially from most fraternities, despite having a close non-Jewish friend at IU, Vernon Huffman. Vernon invited Willie to spend a vacation at his Christian fraternity. Later in life, in the late 1960s, Silberstein established Indiana University’s first fully funded endowed basketball scholarship, the William & Sylvia Silberstein Scholarship, in honor of his friend Vernon Huffman. Indiana University raised many millions of dollars for that scholarship, which has impacted the lives of many of IU’s student-athletes.

Col. Haskell Schwartz of Terre Haute was a veteran of World War II, during which time he helped pilot a B-17 as a navigator. He was a highly decorated officer for his service leading bombing raids over Europe and served in the Korean War. He was later the base commander of the Indiana National Guard and was also chosen as one of six military O.S.I. to investigate all of the commands in Europe.

Jacob Robert Kantor, born in 1888, was the son of a Lithuanian-born Rabbi. He became a prominent psychologist who pioneered a naturalistic system in psychology. He served as a professor at Indiana University in Bloomington for 39 years. One of Kantor’s significant contributions to psychology was his development of naturalistic viewpoints. Kantor aimed to establish a scientific method for studying psychology similar to the techniques used in biology, chemistry, and physics. He utilized this objective approach to research social and behavioral psychology. Kantor is recognized as one of the most famous modern philosophers of science, and his work significantly contributed to the development of psychology as a science.

Samuel Loeb (September 4, 1862 – January 22, 1947) was born in Ligonier, Indiana, the child of German-speaking Jewish immigrants. He was the son of Simon Loeb, a prominent brewer. The family later settled in Tacoma, Washington, and Samuel Loeb was involved in several area breweries, including the “old German Lager.” First, he worked at the Milwaukee Brewery, which later merged to form the Pacific Brewing & Malting Company. He then moved on to the Independent Brewery before it was bought by the Seattle Brewing & Malting Co.

Wimpy is a fast food chain known for its Hamburbergers  (Originally called Wimpy Grills). Today is an international chain in the Unitied Kingdom, Unitied Arab Emirates, and South Africa. It was founded in Bloomington, Indiana, in 1934 by Edward V. Gold. ( Born Goldberg), the son of two Russian Jewish Immigrants.

In 1932, Jewish Attorney Bess Robbins Kaufman became one of the first Democratic women elected to the Indiana House. She served in the sessions of 1933, 1937, and 1939.

Edwin Franko Goldman was born in Louisville in 1878. He was a bandmaster, composer, and trumpet player. The Goldman family moved to Evansville in 1879 and shortly after that to Terre Haute, where his father, David Franko, taught linguistics at the newly opened Coates College for Women. David later became the town’s Justice of the Peace. Tragically, his father died from an aortic aneurysm in 1886. Following this, his mother, Selma Franko Goldman, a child prodigy on the piano, moved the family to New York City. There, Edwin studied cornet at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum and later attended the National Conservatory of Music. In 1893, he began playing the trumpet for the Metropolitan Opera House. In 1911, he founded the New York Military Band, which later evolved into the renowned Goldman Band (1918-2005). In 1929, he established the American Bandmasters Association and served as its second honorary life president, succeeding John Philip Sousa. Edwin Franko Goldman died in New York City on February 21, 1956. Throughout his career, he composed over 150 works.

Louis Newberger, a Jewish attorney from the small town of Matthews, Indiana, was the original owner of the Maroons/Indianapolis Hoosiers baseball team in 1886. He significantly relocated the team from St. Louis to Indianapolis for the first few months of its existence in Indiana. However, he later focused on operating his legal practice and other business endeavors and resigned as team President.

In 1947, Max Gerber, a Jewish philanthropist in Kokomo, Indiana, and Temple B’nai Israel’s primary funder, raised capital for the project to help build the predominantly African American Carver Center. The Center still exists today as a multi-ethnic Community center in Kokomo.

Bernie Pollack, brother of renowned filmmaker Sydney Pollack, was born and raised in Indiana to Jewish immigrants. He designed the hats and costumes for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Indiana was a vital destination for early German-speaking Jewish immigrants in the 19th century, who often relocated to smaller cities such as LaPorte and Evansville for prominent Jewish families like the Rosenwald Family and places like Madison, Indiana, for the Brandeis family. The low start-up price for businesses in smaller Indiana towns and cities was often attractive for the new weary Jewish immigrants before moving to larger, more expensive cities such as Louisville or Chicago.

Emma Messing, the daughter of Rabbi Mayer Messing of Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation, was one of the first women to enter the American Diplomatic Services and became one of the first women to staff a US Consulate permanently after a career in entertainment and Vaudeville. Her journey took her to Berlin, where she worked from 1921 to 1941, where she saw the fall of the Weimar Republic and much of the economic fallout from World War 1. During her time in the consulate, other American diplomats saw her Jewishness as a threat to the American Consulate in Berlin’s activities and negotiations with the Nazis. Emma Messing worked to raise money to help the impoverished in Berlin. She barely got out of Nazi Germany via Sweden and Portugal. Emma Messing returned to speak all over Indianapolis about her experiences and the atrocities against Jews by the Nazi régime and its threat to the United States. She delivered this speech one month before Pearl Harbor at the Columbia Club in Indianapolis, where she shared her personal experiences and the threat of Nazism.

Abraham and Sara Weil were married in Alsace–Lorraine, a German-speaking region of France. They worked as cattle ranchers, a common occupation among German-speaking Jews. In the 1870s, when the Franco-Prussian War broke out, the Weils relocated to Southern Indiana, where they continued their work as ranchers and lived in Evansville. In 1901, they welcomed their son, Jack Arnold Weil, who later worked in an overall factory during World War I. He eventually took a hat salesman job, leading him west to Denver, Colorado. 1946 Weil rented space at 1946 Wazee Street in Denver to create a fashionable yet practical identity for the region’s western ranchers. He sold his signature design of Western shirts featuring sawtooth pockets and pearl diamond snaps, among other Western wear products. Rockmount still operates out of that building today. Rockmount’s fashions were prominently featured in the 2005 Academy Award-winning film *Brokeback Mountain.” Many of Rockmount’s clothes were worn by celebrities, artists, and politicians. Elvis performed his last concert in Indianapolis wearing a Rockmount shirt. Jack Weil claimed to have invented the Bolo tie and may have been the first to mass-manufacture it. He often wore one and said he took inspiration from local Native American dress in designing his Bolo. Jack Weil passed away at the age of 107. At his death, he was believed to be the oldest working CEO in the United States. Jack claimed his longevity was due to taking small shots of Jack Daniel’s daily. He truly lived the life of a Jewish cowboy. The Denver Street in front of his long-time store was renamed in honor of Jack Weil and his lasting legacy. His most famous quote was: “The West is not a place. It is a state of mind.”

Herman “Trigger” Alpert (September 3, 1916 – December 21, 2013) was an American jazz bassist. Alpert, a native of Indianapolis, was born into a Jewish Home and educated in Indianapolis. Alpert later attended Indiana University, where he studied music. Shortly after, he played with guitarist Alvino Rey in New York City and then toured with the Glenn Miller Band in the early 1940s. He served in the Army first at Fort Benjamin Harrison and later at Stout Field before going on a world tour entertaining US Troops during World War Two with the Glenn Miller Band. Throughout the rest of the decade, he collaborated with notable artists such as Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge, Ella Fitzgerald, Bud Freeman, Woody Herman, Jerry Jerome, Bernie Leighton, Ray McKinley, Frank Sinatra, and Muggsy Spanier. In the 1950s and early 1960s, he recorded as a sideman with musicians including Don Elliott, Coleman Hawkins, Gene Krupa, Mundell Lowe, Buddy Rich, Artie Shaw, and the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra. Alpert’s only album as a leader, titled “Trigger Happy,” was released by Riverside in 1956 and featured Al Cohn, Urbie Green, Tony Scott, Ed Shaughnessy, Zoot Sims, and Joe Wilder. He was a member of the CBS Orchestra, which included a rhythm section with Hank Jones, Sonny Igoe, and Chuck Wayne, until the late 1960s. During his time with CBS, he performed for the television series The Garry Moore Show alongside Carol Burnett. He also participated in Barbra Streisand’s television specials “My Name Is Barbra” and “Color Me Barbra.”

The theatre today, known as the Morris, was initially called the Palais Royale Building, also known as the Lippman Building, and is located in South Bend, Indiana. It was built in 1922 by Jacob Handelsman, a Russian-Jewish immigrant who founded the State Theatre in South Bend, which opened on January 29, 1921, as the Blackstone Theatre.

Phyllis R. Klotman founded the Journal Black Camera in 1981. She helped to amass an extensive archive of African American film at Indiana University in Bloomington, now including thousands of movies, photographs, oral histories, and memorabilia.

One of the Founders and Honorary Presidents of the Yiddish Speaking Labor-Zionist Organization, Farband Meyer L. Brown, born in Bialystok, Poland, in 1888, attended Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana, in the early 1910s.

Minnette Baum, a trailblazing Jewish Social Worker, was instrumental in establishing several organizations in Fort Wayne. This included helping to create the Allen Co. Children’s Home, the Wheatley Center, the Fort Wayne Women’s Club, and the League for the Blind.

In 1864, Samuel Fox, a German-speaking Jewish immigrant to LaPorte, Indiana, created the La Porte Woolen Mill, the first known Mill of its type west of New York. At one point, the company had 1000 employees.

Isaiah Kuperstein, of Indianapolis, the son of Holocaust survivors, was the First Director Of Education at the U.S. Holocaust Museum.

Rabbi Harris Weinstein, an immigrant born in Lithuania in 1859, is believed to have had one of the longest-known Rabbinical careers in Indiana, Starting at an Orthodox Pulpit for one year in Evansville in 1880. In 1881, Rabbi Harris arrived in Goshen, Indiana, and became Rabbi of Congregation Sharis Israel  Weinstein, starting a Rabbinical Career ending in 1939. His Son Aaron would later become a prominent Rabbi in the Reform Movement.

Sid Collins (born Sidney Cahn Jr.) (July 17, 1922 – May 2, 1977) was an Indiana broadcaster best known as the radio voice of the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network from 1952–1976. Collins famously coined the phrase describing the annual May motorsports event as “the greatest spectacle in racing.” Born into a Jewish family that owned a neighborhood store in Indianapolis, Indiana, Cahn changed his professional name to Collins for fear of antisemitism and discrimination in the field of broadcasting.

The First High Holiday Service was held in Gary, Indiana, in September 1907. On a cold, windy day, the Shofar was blown and occurred in a Hay Loft owned by Philip Mekatinsky between Ninth and Tenth Avenues on Alabama Street.

An Orthodox Jewish Immigrant from Czarist Russia to South Bend, Jessie Levy became the First woman to graduate from Indiana University School of Law – class of 1921, and the First known woman to act as a judge in Indiana.

L.T. Alexander David Goode (May 10, 1911 – February 3, 1943) was a Rabbi and member of the U.S. Army. He was one of the Four Chaplains who sacrificed to save fellow soldiers when the troop transport Dorchester sank during World War II. Before his service, Rabbi Goode fulfilled the role of rabbi in Marion, Indiana.

Rabbi Jack H. Skirball was a Rabbi who served in Evansville, Indiana. In 1933, Skirball became the manager of Educational Films Corporation. He produced a groundbreaking film called “Birth of a Baby,” the first movie to show a baby being born. In the 1950s, Rabbi Skirball got into real estate and became wealthy. He also remained active in the Jewish community, supporting the Reform movement. However, he no longer served as a rabbi, donating funds to Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (in Los Angeles), which established the Skirball Museum in 1972. Skirball and his wife donated money to help establish the Skirball Center in the early 1980s.

Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise founded Hebrew Union College (HUC), The first Rabbinical School in American History in 1875. With a gracious $10,000 donation by Merchant Henry Adler of Lawrenceburg, Indiana, an Orthodox Jewish Immigrant from Alsace-Lorraine who had given a considerable amount of his wealth, Hebrew Union College’s first classes were offered in 1875, housed in two of Cincinnati’s synagogues. In 1881, HUC moved into its building, and four years later, its first graduates received a formal ceremony for ordination.

Janot Roskin was already active as a chorister and prayer leader in his youth and collected folk songs while traveling through his home region. In 1903, he went to Berlin. In 1911, he founded a conservatory in Berlin-Halensee, which he directed until 1918. He campaigned for the dissemination of Jewish music. In the Verlag für Nationale Volkskunst, he published “Jewish National Dances” (1919) and “Collected Jewish Songs” (1916, 1921); after fleeing Nazi Germany in 1937 In 1940, Janot and his wife Evelyn moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, after living in Boston for a few years. In Indianapolis, Janot was the Music Director at the Temple Beth-El Zedeck. Janot died in 1946. and is buried in Indianapolis. However, much of the European Folk Music he collected still lives on and is still performed.

In 1860, in Lafayette, Indiana, The Jewish community hosted the first known Jewish Egalitarian Prayer Quorum (Minyan), with Jewish women counting equally with Jewish men.

David E. Lilienthal, who grew up in Valparaiso, Indiana, and graduated from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, later headed the Tennessee Valley Authority during the 1930s and 1940s and served as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission from 1946 to 1950. He requested access to the AEC file on Oppenheimer’s 1947 security clearance to prepare for testifying. However, as he later noted, “vital parts of these records had been removed without my knowledge.” Those very documents, he believed, were then used by Roger Robb to cast doubt on his trustworthiness. In a quote attributed to Lilienthal regarding Oppenheimer, “Here is a man of good character, integrity, and loyalty to his country.”

Jewish Rock Star David Lee Roth was born October 10, 1954, in Bloomington, Indiana. For the most part, Roth grew up in New Castle, Indiana. In a 2019 interview with Q95’s “Stuck and Gunner,” he explained: “My grandparents moved to New Castle in 1913.”

Joe and Sophie Newman of South Bend, Indiana’s daughter, Rita Jo, was injured at birth, resulting in profound developmental disabilities. Inspired by their daughter’s unique needs and influenced by his parents’ revolutionary activism, they founded a local organization for the families of developmentally and intellectually challenged children. Joe was the organization’s first president, and he played a crucial role in successfully advocating for the passage of legislation funding the first special education services in the state. In 1950, Joe and Sophie co-founded The Logan School with just $25 in the treasury. Now known as LOGAN, it has grown into a multi-million-dollar organization supporting people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families.

Nathan Morris was the first Jewish President of the Indiana Bar Association and a self-educated attorney; Morris died in a house fire in 1903 in which he managed to rescue all but one of the other family members soon after The Nathan Morris Immigrant Settlement Home was named in his honor which was one of the original projects of the Indianapolis Jewish Federation created to assist Jewish immigrants on the South Side of Indianapolis.

Born in Indianapolis, Emma Messing, one of the first women to enter the American diplomatic service, served in the U.S. Embassy in Berlin from 1921 to 1939.

Alvin M. Strauss was born in 1895 to immigrant Jewish German parents in Kendallville, Indiana. He was a Fort Wayne-based architect who designed many early 20th-century landmarks in Indiana, such as thirteen buildings at Indiana University in Bloomington: the Embassy Theatre, the Indiana Hotel, the Fort Wayne War Memorial Coliseum, and the Lincoln Bank Tower.

Sidney Patrick Grauman (March 17, 1879 – March 5, 1950) was an American Jewish showman who created two of Hollywood’s most recognizable and visited landmarks, the Chinese and Egyptian theatres. He was born in Indianapolis.

A Disabled World War 1 veteran, Rabbi Michael Aaronsohn, 1924, first organized Jewish life at Indiana University Bloomington Years before the establishment of Hillel at I.U. in 1938. The “student congregation” was founded with 30 Jewish I.U. Bloomington student Aaronsohn fought in the Argonne offensive in France in 1918; he was hit by a shell, leaving him blind. Later, Michael Aaronsohn was a Rabbi ordained at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati but also had a student pulpit in Richmond, Indiana. He shared his inspirational tale of navigating life as a blinded veteran and a Rabbi throughout the state to Indiana’s Jewish communities in the 1920s.

Jules C. Stein (April 26, 1896 – April 29, 1981) was an American physician and businessman who co-founded Music Corporation of America (MCA). He was born in South Bend, Indiana, to Lithuanian Jewish immigrants.

In 1857, was Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise of Cincinnati’s legendary Prayer Book Minhag America (Customs of America) initially adopted by the Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation? After Rabbi Isaac M. Wise spoke in Indianapolis, The Minhag America prayerbook at Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation was adopted nearly two months before Rabbi I.M Wises’ congregation adopted the Prayer-book, making Indianapolis the first place the American History the Minhag America’s Jewish Liturgy was officially adopted, in Jewish religious service!

In the autumn of 1819, in Cincinnati, four men and David Israel Johnson, a Jewish immigrant from England who had settled in Brookville, Indiana (a frontier trading station), conducted the first Jewish service west of the Appalachians. Similar services were held for the next three years.

In 1870: “A petition by Jews living in Indianapolis, Indiana (Local B’nai Brith chapter) urging President Grant to Intervene on behalf of Romanian Jews was referred to the Senate’s Committee on Foreign Relations.” This sparked. The United States Senate spent an hour that morning discussing the recent massacre of Jews in Romania. Senator Morton of Indiana requested President Grant intervene to “save the Jews of” Romania “from further persecutions.”

In the film “The Founder” from 2016, Harry J. Sonneborn, born in Evansville, Indiana, is portrayed by actor B. J. Novak, who said, “You’re not in the burger business; you’re in the real estate business.”

Rabbi Milton Steinberg became the first Rabbi of Congregation Beth El Zedeck in Indianapolis. Later, he wrote Jewish classics such as “As a Driven Leaf” and “Basic Judaism.”

World-renowned Jewish violinist and conductor Joshua Bell was born in Bloomington, Indiana.

Sarah Wolf Goodman, an Indianapolis Jewish community leader in the Jewish Federation and a trailblazer nationally with Hadassah, was mandated as the Chair of the Indiana State Committee of the Jewish Welfare Board responsible for assisting Jewish military personnel in Indiana during World War Two. Her connections, ability for fundraising, and good governance were greatly appreciated in running a state-wide Jewish war effort. Sarah Wolf Goodman traveled all over Indiana, working with local USOs and Military installations to provide for Jewish U.S. Military In Indiana members’ religious, social, and emotional needs in places such as Camp Atterbury and Stout Field. Sarah Wolf Goodman also worked with local Jewish communities to raise funds and organize Programs for the Jewish Troops in areas such as Vincennes, Evansville, Columbus, Franklin, Peru, Terre Haute, Fort Wayne’s Baer Field, Whiting, East Chicago, Indianapolis, and Marion, Indiana.

Samuel Judah from Vincennes, Indiana, was elected Indiana’s first and only Speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives in 1840.

The Indiana Governor’s Mansion in Indianapolis, built from 1919 to 1945, was initially created for Henry Kahn in 1908. A Bloomington, Indiana native, Kahn (1860-1934) was a successful manufacturer. His Kahn Tailoring Company had over 2,000 dealers and 12 retail stores nationwide. The building was sold to the Marriott Hotel and demolished in 1962.

Thelma “Tiby” Eisen (May 11, 1922 – May 11, 2014) was an outfielder in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League from 1944 through 1952. She was born and raised in L.A. to an Orthodox Jewish family and played for the Fort Wayne Daisies (1947–’52).

Simon Wile (1830-1907) was a representative in the Indiana State Legislature from La Porte, Indiana. In 1869, he sponsored the first child labor law in the United States.

Indianapolis-born Rabbi Abraham Cronbach would serve as the Rabbi of Temple Beth El in South Bend. Years later, Rabbi Cronbach appeared with Julius Rosenberg’s mother and the Rosenbergs’ two small sons at a protest meeting in front of the White House after the Rosenbergs had been found guilty. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed at Sing Sing prison in New York on June 19, 1953, more than two years after being found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage. Cronbach gave a eulogy at Rosenberg’s funeral on June 21, 1953.

Dr. Chaim Weizmann, who developed synthetic acetone for the British in WWII, used the royalties from producing the product in Commercial Solvents Corporation in Terre Haute to fulfill his dream of Israel. He later became the first President of the modern state of Israel. He was posthumously honored by Governor Mike Pence as a Sagamore of the Wabash on May 30, 2013, at CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Sydney Pollack (July 1, 1934 – May 26, 2008) was an American film director, producer, and actor. Pollack was born in Lafayette, Indiana, to a family of Russian Jewish immigrants, the Son of Rebecca (née Miller) and David Pollack, a semi-professional boxer and pharmacist. The family relocated to South Bend; Pollack directed over 20 films and 10 television shows, acted in over 30 movies or shows and produced over 44 films. For his film Out of Africa (1985), Pollack won the Academy Award for Best Director and Best Picture.

Bertha Beitman Herzog was born in Washington, Indiana, and grew up in Wabash, Indiana. She helped found several local organizations, including the Cleveland Federation of Jewish Women’s Organizations and the Jewish Big Sister Association.

Astronaut David Wolf was born and raised in Indianapolis. He holds degrees from Purdue and Indiana University.

Florence Melton moved to Terre Haute in the early 1930s to mid-1930s. Her Son Gordon was born in 1933 in Terre Haute, where she was disappointed by the level of Jewish Education in the community that she felt was dominated by classical Reform ideas about assimilation. The local Temple also forbade Zionist activities and banned Hadassah, which she was deeply involved in. The Temple later reconsidered and allowed Hadassah membership in the Temple after the Hadassah Members threatened to quit the Temple. She wanted to create more access to quality pluralistic Jewish Educational opportunities. Later, she founded the Florence Melton School of Adult Jewish Learning, the world’s largest pluralistic adult Jewish education network, with 50 Melton communities throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, and South Africa. More than 50,000 learners are in Melton’s curriculum.

The Klan in Indiana led a successful boycott in Indianapolis of the 1923 Movie “Potash and Perlmutter” merely because the film’s leading characters were Jews, according to the Book “A Fever in the Heartland” by Timothy Egan.

The child of Russian Jewish Immigrants, Ramil “Ray” Arcel, was born in Terre Haute, Indiana. A boxing trainer who worked with twenty-two world champions, including Benny Leonard, Barney Ross, Jim Braddock, Tony Zale, Billy Soose, Ezzard Charles, and Roberto Duran.

Amy Eilberg was the first woman ordained to be a Rabbi in Conservative Judaism. Eilberg’s first rabbinic position was as a chaplain at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Indiana University’s legendary Jewish swimmer, Mark Spitz (1969-1972). Spitz won 13 Big Ten, eight NCAA championships, and 12 AAU other championships. He achieved two gold medals in the 1968 Olympics and seven in the 1972 Olympics. Additionally, he was honored as the World Swimmer of the Year twice and received the Gimbel Award in 1972. Spitz made his first international splash at the 1965 Maccabiah Games in Israel, where at age 15 and weighing 130 pounds, he secured four gold medals in the 400m freestyle, the 1,500m freestyle, the 400m individual medley, and the 800m freestyle relay. He was also named the Most Outstanding Athlete of the Games. After completing his events, Spitz left Munich early due to the tragic Munich Massacre, in which eleven Israeli athletes were taken hostage and later murdered by Palestinian terrorists. As a Jewish athlete, authorities were concerned for his safety, and he was escorted to London. Despite only 22 years old, Spitz retired from competition following the Munich Olympics.

The first purposely built Synagogue in Indiana in 1865 on Washington Ave for the B’nai Israel Congregation. Evansville, Indiana, was built on land donated by the Gumberts family. They arrived in Evansville in 1837 and were the first known Jewish family to settle permanently in Indiana. The Gumberts originally immigrated to America from Rathsweiler, Rheinland-Pfalz, which is now located in Germany today.

Lawrence M. Langer (22 December 1913 – 17 January 2000) was a Jewish American Professor at Indiana University Bloomington and a nuclear physicist and a group leader of the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He oversaw the final assembly of the first nuclear bomb on the Pacific Island of Tinian. He slept on the bomb itself the night before it was dropped. He also developed sonar and radar detectors during World War II and worked on the “gun” mechanism used to detonate the Uranium-235 bomb used on Hiroshima.

Congregation Achduth Vesholom in Fort Wayne was founded as the first Synagogue in Indiana in 1848, the same year as the first Synagogue in Brooklyn, New York.

Hebrew National Kosher Sausage Factory, Inc., had a manufacturing plant in Indianapolis from 1989 until 2004.

Only one year after Gary, Indiana, was founded in 1907, Menachem Mendel Sensibar and his son Jacob helped form the city’s first Jewish Prayer Group. He was born in Czarist, Lithuania, in 1860. He arrived in America in 1903. After a short stint in the town of Rishon LeZion in Ottoman Palestine, Mendel soon supervised the building of the Park in Aetna, which is now part of Gary, Indiana. His son Jacob Sensibar leveled dunes to help create parts of Gary, Indiana, and he was famous for creating much of the beach area around Chicago.

Actor Abraham Benrubi, from the T.V. show E.R., attended Broad Ripple High School in Indianapolis. His paternal grandfather was from a Greek-Jewish family. His paternal grandmother, born to a Greek Orthodox Christian family, helped harbor Jews in Greece during World War II and later converted to Judaism.

John Jacob Hays was the first known Jewish resident of Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1820.

Samuel Herschel Schulman (July 8, 1928 – July 5, 2019) was born to Jewish immigrants from Poland in Terre Haute, Indiana. Schulman was the last surviving American crew member of the ship Exodus 1947, which tried to bring thousands of Holocaust survivors from Europe to Mandatory Palestine.

Singer Adam Lambert, born in Indianapolis, was the runner-up on the T.V. show American Idol’s eighth season in 2009. Before his American Idol notoriety, he acquired experience performing within the Jewish community.

Saul Bellow’s Novel Ravelstein was based on his friend and colleague, The Indianapolis, and raised Jewish Philosopher Allan Bloom, who grew up at Congregation Beth El-Zedeck and was on the debate team.

Hubert L. Dreyfus was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, and was an expert in phenomenology, existentialism, and philosophical implications of A.I. and his explanation of Heidegger, which critics labeled “Dreydegger.” And was the inspiration for the Futurama character “Professor Hubert Farnsworth.

You may have seen Jewish fencer Nick Itkin and former Notre Dame Athlete at the Olympics. He’s a 24-year-old, two-time NCAA foil. Itkin was introduced to fencing by his Ukrainian father, Misha; Itkin became a four-time world championship medalist and won a bronze medal in the team foil competition at the 2020 Olympics. He’s among many skilled Jewish fencers who emerged from Notre Dame, including Jonah Shainberg, Noah Silvers, and Atara Greenbaum. In 1986, the University of Notre Dame welcomed its first Israeli student, Yehuda Kovacs, the grandson of a champion fencer from Hungary and a national junior champion himself. Kovacs was searching for an American college with a strong fencing program. After applying, he became the first Israeli student at Notre Dame, supported by the Hebrew Orthodox Congregation and Rabbi Yisrael Gettinger of South Bend, who raised over half of Kovacs’ tuition and living expenses. During his freshman year, with the NCAA Championship on the horizon, he amassed a 29-3 record in foil, including a victory over the defending NCAA champion from 1985. Kovacs brought a bold and offensive style to college sports, distinguishing himself from his opponents in fencing. At the time of Yehuda’s enrollment, Notre Dame only had a handful of Jewish students in the mid-1980s.

Hamilton Nussbaum co-founded the Conservatory of Music in Marion, Indiana, with his brother Percy Nussbaum in 1898. The Nussbaum brothers ran the conservatory until 1917. Both Brothers were born in LaPorte, Indiana, to immigrant Jewish parents from Sachsen, Prussia (Germany). The Conservatory was famous for producing legendary musical phenom Cole Porter.

Paul Samuelson was born in Gary, Indiana. He was the first Jewish American to receive the Nobel Prize for Economics (1970) to contribute to economics. Samuelson is considered by many to be the founder of neoclassical economics.

The World’s First Home Gaming System was made in Fort Wayne, Indiana, by a German-born Jewish immigrant named Ralph Baer. It was later known as the Magnavox Odyssey.

Rabbi Marvin Sugarman of the Hebrew Orthodox Congregation 1964 linked arms and sang “We Shall Overcome” in a march with a group of interfaith and interracial religious leaders. The march started in Howard Park and ended at the St Joseph Courthouse in South Bend, celebrating a Freedom march for racial equality.

Gen. Frederick Knefler, a Hungarian Jewish Immigrant to Indianapolis, became one of the highest-ranking Jews in the Union Army during the Civil War. As President of the board of regents of Indiana’s Soldiers and Sailors Monument, he oversaw the cornerstone laying in the center of Indianapolis on August 22, 1889, but sadly died before its completion in 1902.

Milton Kraus, a Republican member of Indiana’s House of Representatives, was born in Kokomo, Indiana. He organized a company of volunteers for the Spanish-American War. He served in the 65th, 66th, and 67th Congresses. His defeat in Congress was partly due to an aggressive press campaign from the Indiana Klan.

Actor Michael Rosenbaum, who starred in Smallville, was raised in Newburg and attended Castle High School there. Best known for portraying Lex Luthor on the Superman TV series Smallville, he was celebrated by T.V. Guide in 2013 as one of the 60 Nastiest Bad Guys of All Time.

Isadore Levine (1897-1963) of La Porte, Indiana, was the first Jewish justice on the Indiana Supreme Court.

Although considered one of the most famous baritone singers of Hebrew in the World, Cantor Myro Glass was forced to work in a Coal Mines when he first immigrated to America from Austria before eventually becoming the Cantor of Congregation Beth El Zedeck in Indianapolis when Rabbi Milton Steinberg invited him.

Bernard Sobel is the son of Polish Jewish immigrants Nathan L. and Hattie Levy Sobel. Born on March 13, 1887, in Attica, Indiana, he was known as a publicist, American playwright, and historian of American entertainment in later years. He helped Eddie Cantor, Will Rogers, Len Errol, Vivienne Segal, Billie Burke, and many other famous, talented performers.

Rabbi David Philipson, born in 1862 in Wabash, Indiana, co-wrote the Union Prayer Book, the central prayer book for Reform Judaism, and presided over its first few re-publishings. He also became the leader of the Reform Movement after Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wises’ death.

Max Nirdlinger was born in Fort Wayne and owned the original National Association of Pro Baseball Players franchises in 1871. Playing against Teams from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Boston, his Fort Wayne Kekiongas team did not fare well. Still, they played the first game in pro History on May 4, 1871, with a 2 to 0 win at Kekionga Ballpark over the Cleveland Forest Citys. In the 1880s, he owned a baseball bat-making company in Fort Wayne.

Indianapolis-born Larry Frisch Directed Ma’aseh B’Monit (Tel Aviv Taxi), which was released in 1956 and was the first Hebrew feature film in History to be produced entirely in Israel.

One of the world’s largest multinational Banking Firms, Kuhn, Loeb & Co., was started in Lafayette, Indiana. In 1849, Abraham Kuhn, a Jewish Immigrant born in Rhineland-Palatinate, married Regina Loeb, a sister of his future partner, Solomon Loeb. In 1849, he was initially a peddler. In 1850, he formed a general partnership in a merchandising firm in Lafayette, Indiana, with his brother-in-law Solomon Loeb.

Jewish Indiana native, legendary retailer, and Vincennes University graduate Jacob Gimbel. In August of 1910, Jake financed an expedition to Georgetown, British Guiana, in South America, to search for a mysterious electric fish. The search for this mystery fish was successful, and it was named Porotergus gimbeli after the expedition’s sponsor.”

Before becoming the Hebrew Orthodox Congregation Rabbi in South Bend, Indiana, Rabbi Alfred Fruchter was Elvis Presley’s neighbor in Memphis, Tennessee. Elvis often assisted the Rabbi and his family on Shabbat as a kid.

Jacob and Rachel Toledano were Sephardic Jews from Monastir, then part of the Ottoman Empire and today part of Northern Macedonia. They immigrated to Indianapolis in 1906 and were some of the first known Sephardic Jews to settle on the Southside of Indianapolis.