Happy Jewish American Heritage Month everyone! “May is Jewish American Heritage Month, a great opportunity to celebrate the important contributions Jewish Americans have made to America since the first group of Jews arrived in New Amsterdam in 1654. The United States has many heritage months that celebrate the various communities that form the mosaic of our country, including Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, and more. By celebrating heritage months, we learn about one another, we honor the richness of our diverse nation, and we strengthen the fabric of American society. “
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency highlights influential Jewish figures each year and these folks made the cut: Jack Antonoff is a music producer known for his work with artists such as Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, The Chicks. He’s also a musician himself, as the lead singer of The Bleachers and the former guitarist and drummer in the band Fun. Yoshua Bengio is a Turing Prize-winning Canadian computer scientist specializing in the social and ethical impact of artificial intelligence. He was born in France to a Moroccan Jewish family, including a father who performed in Judeo-Arabic. Tory Burch is a New York-based fashion designer whose designs popularized the travel ballet flat in the 2010s and whose brand has seen a renaissance of cool in the past year. The Tory Burch Foundation has also provided more than $100 million in loans to women entrepreneurs and promotes gender equality. Alex Edelman, who grew up Orthodox in the suburbs of Boston, has had a banner year, with his standup special “Just for Us,” about his infiltration into a white supremacist meeting in New York, premiering on HBO earlier this month after seven years of touring, including on Broadway. Edelman has said he is considering making his next special about Israel, but the past six months have affected his thinking. Larry Ellison is the co-founder of software company Oracle, currently serving as its chief technology officer. He famously refused to have a bar mitzvahbecause Hebrew school conflicted with baseball practice. Ynon Kreiz is the Israeli-born CEO of Mattel. His recognition that the company possessed intellectual property geared to children “second only to Disney,” as he told the New Yorker, paved the way for the mega box office hit “Barbie” in 2023. James McBride, the son of a Jewish mother and African-American father, won two National Jewish Book Awards for 2023 for “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store,” a book about Black and Jewish residents in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. His 2013 novel “The Good Lord Bird” about abolitionist soldiers at Harpers Ferry in 1859 was adapted for a miniseries in 2020, and starred Ethan Hawke, who wrote McBride’s entry for the Time 100. Maya Rudolph is a comedian and actress and “Saturday Night Live” alum. She learned via a 2016 episode of PBS’ “Finding Your Roots” that her great-grandfather moved to Pittsburgh from Vilna in 1902 and was a founding member of a synagogue in his new city. Norah Weinstein is the co-CEO of Baby2Baby, a nonprofit organization that provides items like diapers to parents in financial need. Her own children attended a Jewish preschool in Los Angeles and she has said she is inspired by the Jewish concept of tikkun olam.
