List of East European Jews: Difference between revisions

Template:JewsByCountry Until the Holocaust, Jews were a significant part of the population of Eastern Europe. Outside Poland, the largest population was in the European part of the USSR, especially the Ukraine (1.5 million in the 1930s), but major populations also existed in Romania and Czechoslovakia. Here is a list of some prominent East European Jews, arranged by country of origin.

(Note: Baltic and Balkan Jews are on different lists.)

Belarus

• Alexander Akhiezer, Belarusian-born Ukrainian physicist,
• Naum Akhiezer, Belarusian-born Ukrainian Russian mathematician,
• Zhores Alferov, physicist, Nobel Prize (2000) (Jewish mother)
• Semyon Altshuller, Belarusian-born Russian physicist,
• Isaac Asimov, Belarusian-born American writer, science fiction
• Paul Baran, Belarusian-born American co-inventor of Internet, packet switching, (born in Grodno)
• Menachem Begin, Israeli PM, Nobel Prize (1978)
• Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Belarusian-born Israeli linguist, father of modern Hebrew language,
• Isaac Dov Berkowitz, writer
• Irving Berlin, Belarusian-born American composer,
• Bella Chagall, the wife of Chagall
• Marc Chagall, painter
• Anatoly Chubais, Belarusian-born Rissian Deputy PM (1992-94) (Jewish mother),
• Morris Raphael Cohen, philosopher
• Fania Cohn, Belarusian-born American Workers Union Leader,
• David Dubinsky, labor leader
• Simon Dubnow, Jewish historian
• Efim Fradkin, Belarusian-born Russian nuclear physicist,
• Vitalii Goldanski, Belarusian-born Russian American nuclear theoretican,
• Lazar Gulkowitsch
• Avraham Harkavi, historian
• Michel Kikoine, painter
• Semyon Ariyevich Kosberg
• Pinchus Kremegne, painter
• Meyer Lansky, Belarussian-born American gangster,
• Seymour Lubetzky, cataloging theorist
• Leonid Mandelstam, Belarusian-born Ukrainian Russian physicist,
• Michael Marks, co-founder of Marks and Spencers
• Louis B. Mayer, co-founder MGM
• Arkadii Migdal, Belarusian-born Russian physicist,
• Shimon Peres, Belarusian-born Israeli PM, Nobel Prize (1994)
• David Pinski, writer
• Ida Rosenthal, founder of Maidenform Brassieres
• David Sarnoff, head of RCA
• Feodor Schapiro, Belarusian-born Russian nuclear physicist,
• Issai Schur, Belarusian-born German Israeli mathematician,
• Yitzhak Shamir, Israeli PM (1984-85 1988-90)
• Carlos Sherman, writer, translator (Jewish father)
• Chaim Soutine, painter
• Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmology writer
• Lev Vygotsky, psychologist
• Chaim Weizmann, First President of Israel, syntetic acetone
• Oscar Zariski, Belarusian-born Italian American mathematician,

Czech Republic

Political figures

• Madeline Albright, U.S. politician (raised Christian)
• Louis Brandeis, U.S. judge (Czech parents)
• Rudolf Slánský, communist politician

Academic figures

• Gerty Cori, biochemist, Nobel Prize (1947)
• Martin Fleischmann, chemist
• Sigmund Freud, psychoanalyst (Czech-born)
• Ernest Gellner, anthropologist
• Edmund Husserl, philosopher (Czech-born)
• Norbert Jokl, linguist
• Karl Kautsky, Marxist theorist
• Hans Kelsen, legal philosopher (Czech-born)
• Ernest Nagel, philosopher
• Olga Taussky Todd, mathematician
• Max Wertheimer, Gestalt psychologist (Czech-born)

Film and stage

• Milos Forman, director (Jewish father)
• Karl Freund, cinematographer
• Arnost Goldflam, playwright, director
• Hugo Haas, director/actor
• Francis Lederer, actor
• Herbert Lom, actor
• Karel Reisz, director

Musicians

• Guido Adler, musicologist (Czech-born)
• Rudolf Friml, composer
• Pavel Haas, composer
• Gideon Klein, composer
• Hans Krása, composer (Jewish mother)
• Erich Wolfgang Korngold, film composer
• Gustav Mahler, composer (Czech-born)
• Ignaz Moscheles, pianist & composer
• David Popper, cellist
• Rudolf Serkin, pianist
• Walter Susskind, conductor
• Viktor Ullmann, composer

Writers and poets

• Ludvik Askenazy, writer (unconfirmed)
• Max Brod, author and friend of Kafka
• Hermann Grab, writer
• Franz Kafka, novelist
• Egon Erwin Kisch, journalist
• Leopold Kompert, writer
• Karl Kraus, writer (Czech-born)
• Gustav Meyerink, writer (converted to Buddhism)
• Tom Stoppard, playwright
• Hermann Ungar, author
• Jiří Weil, writer
• Franz Werfel, writer

Miscellaneous

• Heinrich Blum, architect
• Bedřich Feuerstein (Jewish father)
• Salo Flohr, leading chess player
• Judah Loew, rabbi and Golem-creator
• Wilhelm Steinitz, world chess champion

Moldova

• Lev Simonovich Berg, geographer & zoologist
• Gary Bertini, conductor
• Bronfman family
  • Samuel Bronfman, founder of Seagram
• Samuel Cohen (composer), composer of hatTiqwah
• I.A.L. Diamond
• Meir Dizengoff
• William F. Friedman, cryptographer
• A. N. Frumkin, electrochemist
• Mikhail Gershenzon, historian
• Nahum Gutman, painter
• Boris Katz, artificial intelligence researcher
• Abba Ptachya Lerner
• Lewis Milestone, director
• Sigmund Mogulesko
• Jerzy Neyman, mathemaician
• Moishe Oysher, yiddish singer
• Anton Rubinstein, pianist
• Meir Zorea, general in the Israel Defense Forces

Romania

see: List of Jewish Romanians

Slovakia

• Joseph Goldberger, discovered cure for pellagra
• John Hertz, founder of Yellow Cab & Hertz (unconfirmed)
• Peter Lorre, actor
• Robert Maxwell, media mogul
• Ivan Reitman, film director

Ukraine

Political figures

• Levi Eshkol, Israeli prime minister
• Golda Meir, Israeli prime minister
• Evgeny Primakov, prime minister of Russia
• Natan Sharansky, Israeli politician
• Moshe Sharett, Israeli prime minister
• Leon Trotsky, communist revolutionary
• Moisei Uritsky, communist revolutionary
• Barry Cooke, communist revolutionary
• Grigory Zinoviev, Soviet revolutionary

Academic figures

• Vladimir Arnold, mathematician (Jewish mother)
• Sergei Bernstein, mathematician
• Abram Samoilovitch Besicovitch, mathematician (karaite)
• Herbert C. Brown, chemist, Nobel Prize (1979) (Ukrainian parents)
• Vladimir Drinfeld, mathematician
• Ariel Durant, historian
• Israel Gelfand, mathematician
• Zellig Harris, linguist
• Mark Grigoryevich Krein, mathematician
• Simon Kuznets, economist
• Leonid Levin, mathematician
• Evgenii M Lifshitz, mathematician
• Mark Naimark, mathematician
• Trachtenbergs
• Jacob Rabinow, inventor
• Selman Waksman, biochemist, Nobel Prize (1952)

Film and stage

• Elina Bystritskaya, actress
• Maya Deren, filmmaker
• Mila Kunis, actress
• Anatole Litvak, director
• Yakov Smirnoff, comedian (Jewish mother)
• Lee Strasberg, acting teacher

Musicians

• Simon Barere, pianist
• Shura Cherkassky, pianist
• Mischa Elman, violinist
• Emanuel Feuermann, cellist (born in Austrian Galicia)
• Felix Blimenfeld, pianist
• Jascha Horenstein, conductor
• Vladimir Horowitz, pianist
• Leonid Kogan, violinist
• Nathan Milstein, violinist
• Benno Moiseiwitsch, pianist
• David Oistrakh, violinist
  • Igor Oistrakh, violinist (Jewish father)
• Leo Ornstein, composer
• Leo Sirota, pianist
• Isaac Stern, violinist
• Dimitri Tiomkin, film composer

Writers and poets

• Sholom Aleichem, humorist and author
• Isaac Babel, author
• Hayyim Nahman Bialik, poet
• Ilya Ehrenburg, author
• A.M. Klein, poet
• Lev Kopelev, author and dissident

Miscellaneous

• Nudie Cohen, clothier
• Lew Grade, TV producer
• Morris Lapidus, architect
• Louise Nevelson, sculptor
• Pritzker family
  • Jay Pritzker, founder of Hyatt & philanthropist
• Felix G. Rohatyn, New York financer

Sports

• Oksana Baiul, figure skater (Olympic gold) (Jewish mother)
• David Bronstein, chess player
• Sasha Cohen, figure skater (Ukrainian parents)
• Efim Geller, chess player
• Maria Gorokhovskaya, gymnast (2 Olympic golds, 5 silvers)
• Lenny Krayzelburg, swimmer (3 Olympic golds)
• Valentin Mankin, sailor (3 Olympic golds, 1 silver)
• Fania Melnik, discus thrower (Olympic gold)
• Tamara & Irina Press, sister athletes (5 Olympic golds, 1 silver in total)
• Zhanna Pintusevich-Block, sprinter (World Championship gold)
• Leonid Stein, chess player

See also List of Polish Jews

See also

• List of Belarusians
• List of Czechs
• List of Moldovans
• List of Romanians
• List of Slovaks
• List of Ukrainians