Jewish Contributions to Humanity

Jewish Contributions to Humanity #11:
Original research by Walter L. Field.
Sponsored by Irwin S. Field.

Adolf von Baeyer  (1835-1917). b. Berlin, Germany.  Nobel Prize in Chemistry—1905. The jeans chemist. 

Jeans, you may be surprised to learn, are not naturally blue. No, that’s in fact thanks to Adolph von Baeyer, who synthesized in 1880 indigo, a blue dye. This little known scientist made some other invaluable contributions, including his discovery of barbituric acid (which led to the manufacture of types of sedatives and anesthetics), and fluorescein, which forensic investigators use to find blood and other stains. 

Adolph Frank  (1834-1916). b. Klotze, Germany. Putting food on the table.

Every year globally, more than 30 million tons of potash are produced. The main ingredient of which is potassium, potash is one of the most crucial artificial nutrients in agriculture. Who do we have to thank for discovering that potash could be a fertilizer that could help feed humanity? Adolph Frank, another unheralded but hugely impactful German Jewish scientist. Additionally, Frank also invented a way to extract bromine from salt mines. Bromine has served humanity well—as a flame retardant, a pesticide, and a sedative.

Richard Willstatter (1872-1942). b. Karlsruhe, Germany. Nobel Prize in Chemistry—1915. How light turns into energy.

A protégé of Adolph von Baeyer at the University of Munich, Willstatter was the first ever scientist to determine the chemical formula of chlorophyll, a vital chemical in photosynthesis (the process by which sunlight is converted into energy). This was the main contribution for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize. In 1917, when his friend Fritz Haber (see below) asked him to develop poison gas to advance Germany’s interest in World War I, Willstatter declined—and instead offered to help develop a defensive filter to poison gas, which led to the first gas masks.

Fritz Haber (1868-1934). b. Wroclaw, Poland. Nobel Prize in Chemistry—1918. The master of chemicals, for good and bad.

Haber sits in the center of what was truly a golden age of Jewish chemists. He and Adolph Frank are responsible for feeding much of humanity—the Haber Process, which produced ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen, is responsible for the creation of agricultural fertilizers (500 million tons are produced annually) that now help feed a substantial portion of humanity. Haber’s creation of ammonia has even been credited with “detonating” the population explosion from 1.6 billion people in 1900 to more than 7 billion today. Why? Well, to feed the increasing world population would have been impossible if the relatively inefficient methods of agriculture in that era didn’t improve. Ammonia-based fertilizers allow for farms to grow far more food than they could have grown in the past. Haber, though, must also be remembered as the head of the German military’s chemistry wing during World War I. He supervised the first use of chemical weapons (chlorine gas) in military history and also of chemical defense (gas masks) in modern warfare. His legacy is a mixed one—greatness for his role in agricultural chemistry; controversy for his part in the chemistry of warfare.

Jewish Contributions to Humanity #10:
Original research by Walter L. Field.
Sponsored by Irwin S. Field.

August von Wassermann (1866-1925). b. Bamberg, Germany.  The immunologist. 

In 1906, bacteriologist and immunologist August von Wassermann created the first reliable test for detecting syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease. The Wasserman test, which was developed at the Robert Koch Institute for Infectious Diseases identifies an antibody that’s unique to syphilis, lupus, malaria, and tuberculosis. This test formed the basis for subsequent tests used in the detection of these diseases. In 1921 Wasserman became the first recipient of the Aronson Prize for his immunological achievements.

Bela Schick (1877-1967). b. Balatonboglár, Hungary. Sticking it to diphtheria.

Raised in Hungary but spending most of his clinical career in New York City, Bela Schick created the Schick test to identify diphtheria, a potentially fatal disease that originates in the throat and still kills thousands of people per year. Schick created the test in 1910, when diphtheria was a feared disease and vaccinations for it were in low supply, making it crucial to only vaccinate children with preexistent susceptibility, and not those who were naturally immune from diphtheria. Schick’s test identified at-risk children by injecting a tiny amount of diluted diphtheria into their arm. In susceptible children, the injection site would become red and swollen. He led a massive and successful five-year public relations campaign to persuade as many parents as possible to test their children for susceptibility.

Gertrude Elion (1918-1999). b. New York City. Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1988. A pharmaceutical genius. 

Spurred by the death of her grandfather from cancer, Gertrude Elion, at 15, decided to devote her career to making people healthier. In her 20s she began research at what is now the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, eschewing a PhD so that she could continue her lab work full-time. By the time her career ended, she was responsible for the creation of Purinethol, the first Leukemia treatment, Imuran, a crucial drug for organ transplants, Daraprim, a crucial malaria treatment, Septra, vital in treating infections of the urinary and respiratory tracts, Zovirax, which is used to treat herpes, and AZT, the first ever drug approved by the U.S. government in treatment of HIV. Several of the drugs she helped create are on the WHO’s Model List of Essential Medicines, which is a list of drugs that any society must have readily accessible in order to maintain basic standards of health. 

Jewish Contributions to Humanity #9:
Original research by Walter L. Field.
Sponsored by Irwin S. Field.

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902-1991). b. Leoncin, Poland.  1978 Nobel Prize in Literature. The Yiddish storyteller. 

He is accepted as one of the greatest contemporary Yiddish short story writers and novelists, whose tales wove fantasy, mysticism and eroticism into much of his fiction. Born to a family of Chassidic rabbis, Singer attended a rabbinical seminary, but instead chose the path of the writer. He began his career as a journalist in Warsaw, publishing his first novel, “Satan in Goray,” in 1935, the same year he emigrated to America. In the United States, he continued working as a journalist for The Jewish Daily Forward and he published his first major novel, “The Family Moskat,” in 1950, which was almost shut down by his boss because of its controversial themes (including adultery on Yom Kippur). Several stories of his were adapted into film, including “Yentl” and “Enemies, a Love Story.” In all, Singer published at least 18 novels, 14 children’s books, and many more articles, essays, and memoirs. He wrote everything in Yiddish and his works were later translated into English and other languages. His work gave millions of people insight into the richness of Yiddish language and culture and into the world of East European Jewry—both the shtetl world and the urban world. His writing was very much a product of the environment of his Polish upbringing. If history books will give the world a window into the macro history of Polish and Yiddish Jewry, Singer has given us a window into the Yiddish soul.

Bernard Malamud (1914-1986). b. Brooklyn, NY. 1967 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.  The late-blooming novelist.

For someone who burned the manuscript of his first novel, “The Light Sleeper,” at the age of 34, Bernard Malamud certainly produced a writing career that, if not prolific in terms of how much he wrote, was remarkable for what he wrote. He struck gold with his first published novel, “The Natural,” one of the greatest sports and baseball fantasies ever written, which was turned into a movie starring Robert Redford in 1984. He also wrote seven other novels, including “The Fixer,” about anti-Semitism in Czarist Russia, which won both the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction in 1967. The former urban factory worker, store clerk and high school teacher took up his pen largely in outrage against the Holocaust, and gave a modern voice to fables and parables as vehicles for moral lessons. Many of his short stories and other writings tackle issues germane to so many urban settings—class conflict, poverty and, particularly in New York, life for immigrant communities. One of the great American novelists, Mary Flannery O’Connor, said of Malamud, “I have discovered a short-story writer who is better than any of them, including myself.”

Jewish Contributions to Humanity #8:
Original research by Walter L. Field.
Sponsored by Irwin S. Field.

ELIE METCHNIKOFF (1845-1916). b. Panasovka, Russia.  Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1908. White blood cells — our first line of defense.

After obtaining his four-year natural sciences degree in only two years at Kharkiv University, Elie Metchnikoff began work in a private lab in Messina, Italy in 1882. There, he noticed a reaction in starfishes when he stuck small thorns into them—white cells would inflame the affected area and then surround, attack, and literally devour the invader. These defensive cells were named “phagocytes,” and although Metchnikoff’s findings were initially met with skepticism, he was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1908 for his discovery of this key element of organisms’ innate immune system—the body’s first line of defense. Metchnikoff’s research into lactic acid also began the widely popular probiotics movement. He theorized that ingestion of certain bacteria—often found in types of yogurt and milk—could prolong life.

OTTO LOEWI (1873-1961). b. Frankfurt, Germany. Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1936. Identifying how our brain communicates with our body.

Initially an aspiring clinician, Otto Loewi switched to research after he arrived at the painful conclusion that modern medicine had no treatment for people with advanced tuberculosis and pneumonia. That shift revolutionized human medicine. Loewi, bucking the conventional scientific wisdom of his time, discovered that neurons can communicate with each other through chemical reactions—not only electrical signals. This discovery of neurochemical transmission was instrumental in pharmacology, pathology, psychiatry, and countless other medical fields. Suspecting that chemicals played an intimate role in neuro-communication, Loewi took two beating frog hearts and covered them both in saline solution. He stimulated the vagus nerve of one of the hearts, thus slowing down its heart rate. He then transferred some of the saline from that heart on to the other heart, which in turn slowed down that heart’s rate, proving that there was a chemical—not only an electric impulse—released by the vagus nerve that impacted cell and neuron behavior. That chemical, or neurotransmitter, is now known as acetylcholine.

JOSHUA LEDERBERG (1925-2008). b. Montclair, New Jersey. Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1958. Explaining bacterial resistance.

Graduating high school at 15 and receiving his Nobel Prize only 18 years later, Joshua Lederberg’s genetic research made him one of molecular biology’s foundational scientists. A zoologist and doctor by training, Lederberg bucked most scientists of his time, who believed that bacteria pass down exact genetic copies to their offspring. In the late 1940s Lederberg showed that bacteria transfer and share DNA among themselves, creating offspring with different genes that are better adapted for that specific environment. The discovery had massive implications for biotechnology, genetics, and pharmacology, particularly in understanding how bacteria develop resistance to drugs. Lederberg went on to chair the genetics department at Stanford, write regular science columns for the Washington Post, and advise several U.S. presidents and NASA.

Jewish Contributions to Humanity #7:
Original research by Walter L. Field.
Sponsored by Irwin S. Field.

SIGMUND FREUD  (1856-1939). b. Vienna, Austria.  Modern psychology’s father.

A revolutionary neurologist, psychiatrist and psychotherapist, Sigmund Freud was one of the most influential thinkers in terms of how we understand human nature. He’s known as the father of modern psychoanalysis, a field that mines the mind and how it’s shaped by childhood experiences, parental relationships, repression, and the subconscious. Born in what is now the Czech Republic, Freud lived most of his life in Vienna before fleeing to London in 1938, dying one year later of cancer. He left us with a treasure of insights into the mind, including his remarkable theory that the human psyche is composed of base nature (the id), ego (the “I”) and super-ego (moral conscience), and also the discovery that unresolved or repressed mental conflicts enter our subconscious, where they still impact us but in ways that could be difficult to pinpoint or understand. It’s no understatement to say he was one of the most influential people of the 20th century.

THEODOR REIK (1888-1969). b. Vienna, Austria. Freud’s protégé.

One of Freud’s first students, Reik, upon his immigration to America, was rejected at that time by the psychoanalytic community because he didn’t possess a degree in medicine. Soon thereafter he created the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis – which exists to this day in New York City – and participated in one of the first lawsuits that helped establish that non-physicians may practice psychoanalysis. His most impactful and lasting contributions came in the fields of the therapist-patient relationship and criminology. In the former, he elucidated how a psychotherapist can plum the depths of his or her own subconscious to better understand and treat patients and how therapists can become emotionally entangled with their patients. Reik also theorized that psychologically profiling criminals can help authorities identify and locate them, in part because out of an unconscious guilt criminals will sometimes leave clues that lead to their own capture.

ERICH FROMM (1900-1980). b. Frankfurt, Germany. The political psychologist.Heavily influenced by the Torah and Talmud in his early years but eventually becoming an atheist, Fromm was one of the 20th century’s most influential psychologists and sociologists—someone whose political thinking was deeply impacted by Marx and who was one of the unofficial founders of the field of political psychology. One of Fromm’s greatest insights, described in his seminal book, “Escape From Freedom”, is that humans will either embrace free will or run from it. Running from freedom, he believed, was a source of many psychological pathologies. Those who eschew free will, he believed, either conform to what they believe is society’s preferred personality, give over their free will to others, or engage in destructive behaviors towards others, effectively taking away other peoples’ freedom. In “Man for Himself”, Fromm put forward his belief that one of the core paradoxes of human existence is that we look for closeness and unity with others and an independent identity at the same time. The solution to this paradox, Fromm wrote, is to be oriented productively; that is, to have a purpose-driven life and to channel one’s talents into productive ends.

Jewish Contributions to Humanity #6:
Original research by Walter L. Field.
Sponsored by Irwin S. Field.

Jerry Siegel  (1914-1996). b. Cleveland, Ohio.  Mr. Superman.

A scrawny, unpopular, bespectacled high school student in Cleveland, Jerry Siegel thought up Superman one night in 1934 as a solution to a problem common to so many high school boys—girls. As he said in an interview 40 years later, he thought he’d have better luck if he could do things like jump over buildings and throw cars. Enter Superman. A journalist by day, superhero by night, and a character on which Siegel could place both Lois Lane’s yearning and apathy. She was drawn to Superman, but ignored Clark Kent—her coworker at The Daily Planet—failing to see him for the hero he really was. Siegel and his friend, comic partner and illustrator Joe Shuster spent a few years searching for a buyer for their hero, when in 1938 they sold all rights for Superman to DC Comics…for $130—$10 for each of the 13 pages. The pair continued writing and illustrating Superman for nearly a decade, but when they sued for a share of profits in 1946, DC Comics refused and fired them, instead settling for a one-time $94,000 payment. Siegel wrote again for DC Comics for a few years in the 1960s, but the company eventually let him go, later restoring Siegel’s and Shuster’s bylines—after the former launched a public relations campaign—paying them each a lifetime annuity of $20,000, which was eventually raised to $30,000. In 2013, the original check that DC Comics wrote to Siegel and Shuster (it was $130 for the rights and $282 for their first actual comic) sold at auction for $160,000.

Joe Shuster (1914-1992). b. Toronto, Canada. Mr. Superman.

The other man behind Superman was as integral as Siegel in revolutionizing one of America’s great art forms, which was only five years old when Shuster and Siegel created Superman. Born in Toronto, Shuster said his inspiration for Superman’s hometown of Metropolis was the Toronto skyline. And his love for comics was inspired by his father, who every night after work would read him the vividly colored newspaper comics. Following his and Siegel’s ill-conceived sale of the Superman rights and his decades of working for and suing DC Comics, Shuster had to retire from the field in the 1970s due to partial blindness, and had to rely on his family’s support for most of the remainder of his life. In an interview, Siegel said Superman was a combination of two people: Harold Lloyd, an actor, and Joe Shuster, his friend.

William Marston (1893-1947). b. Saugus, Massachusetts. Mr. Wonder Woman.Inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2006, Marston, a psychologist by training, introduced Wonder Woman—he initially named her “Suprema”—in the 1940’s, at a time when all the great American superheroes and villains were male. Marston, who was influenced by the early suffrage movement, made Wonder Woman strong, independent, and courageous—powerful traits in an era when many saw women as less capable than men. She became a feminist icon, and a superhero who could force villains to tell her the truth with her magic lasso. Through Wonder Woman, Marston introduced his idea of female rehabilitative justice as opposed to male retributive justice. Wonder Woman’s homeland, Paradise Island, held her captives not in a prison, but in Reform Island, a transformation-oriented penal colony.

Jewish Contributions to Humanity #5:
Original research by Walter L. Field.
Sponsored by Irwin S. Field.

The Big Bang, which is the leading cosmological explanation for how the universe came into existence, seems to provide at least as many new questions as answers. Thankfully for us laypeople, two Jewish scientists, Carl Sagan and Arno Penzias, did their very best to help us understand the scientific explanation of the biggest question of them all: Why are we here?

ARNO PENZIAS  (1933-) b . Munich, Germany. Lives in Menlo Park, California. The Big Bang’s pioneer.

As happened with many of the scientists discussed in these columns, the unique circumstances Penzias found himself in were the precise ones he needed to make major contributions to humanity. After moving to the United States with his family in 1940, Penzias later joined the U.S. Army, which helped him get a position with Columbia’s radiation laboratory, which at the time happened to be focused heavily on microwave physics—Penzias spent much of his time at Columbia and Bell Labs researching radio waves. He eventually came across radio noise (cosmic microwave background radiation) that was leftover radiation from the Big Bang. His discovery helped scientists and astronomers deepen their understanding of the Big Bang and the origins of our universe. In 1978, Penzias won a Nobel Prize for his discovery along with his colleague Robert Wilson. The two pioneers continued their search for scientific truth, discovering unknown molecules throughout the universe. Penzias’s explanation of the molecule deuterium further strengthened the Big Bang theory, because deuterium is the only known molecule whose origin can only be explained by the processes of the Big Bang.

CARL SAGAN (1934-1996)  b. Brooklyn, New York. An insatiable curiosity.

Astronomer; cosmologist; astrophysicist; author—the list seems endless. He “led a feverish existence, with multiple careers tumbling over one another” as one admiring writer said. Sagan accomplished much, but nothing reached as wide an audience as “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage”, a 13-part PBS series broadcast in 1980 that was revolutionary at the time, using special effects, science, and a charismatic host (Sagan) to take the viewer on a journey of our existence, from the Big Bang to the origins of life to humanity’s future. Sagan was fascinated with the possibility of alien life, creating the first messages (images and sounds) sent into space—the Pioneer plaque and Voyager Golden Record could theoretically be understood by extraterrestrial life. A lifelong consultant for NASA, Sagan consulted the astronauts on the Apollo before their voyage to the Moon, and he also assisted with many robotic spacecraft missions. His analysis of Venus as a dry and hot planet (as opposed to the previously accepted balmy climate that many had accepted) changed the popularly accepted view of the planet. Furthermore, his insights into the moons of Saturn and Jupiter led to the discovery that the reddish haze on Titan (Saturn’s moon) were organic molecules, a major discovery that suggested the possibility of life outside Earth.

Jewish Contributions to Humanity #4:
Original research by Walter L. Field.
Sponsored by Irwin S. Field.

ABRAHAM FLEXNER (1866-1959) b . Louisville, Kentucky. The academic reformer.

Abraham Flexner was an unlikely candidate to be one of the greatest reformers of American medicine. After all, he wasn’t a doctor and had no medical training. And yet, his proposal to reform health education created the medical school system that remains with us today. A high school teacher and principal, Flexner first made waves in 1908 when he published a book critical of American universities—particularly their penchant to prioritize research over schooling and their preference for large lectures instead of intimate classroom settings. That book, “The American College,” received the attention of the president of the Carnegie Foundation, Henry Pritchett, who then commissioned Flexner to write the “Flexner Report,” a 1910 analysis of American medical training. His report called on schools to raise the bar on admission and graduation standards, follow mainstream scientific and medical theories, take control of clinical training in hospitals, and to be subjected to stronger state medical licensing regulations. In the 25 years following the publication of his report, more than half of America’s medical schools, including a number of the handful that existed for black students, closed or merged—he wanted to cut the annual number of medical school graduates from 4,400 to 2,200. His impact on American education continued in 1930 when he helped found the Institute for Advanced Study, a postdoctoral research center in Princeton.

LILLIAN WALD (1867-1940)  b. Cincinnati, Ohio. Raised among the wealthy, she toiled among the needy.

Raised in relative wealth, Lillian Wald chose to live a life dedicated to those who lived in poverty—and in the process she helped create lasting institutions in America that fulfilled and still fulfill her vision of supporting the needy. After training as a nurse in New York, Wald eschewed the traditional hospital path to instead set up shop on the Lower East Side, where donors supported her mission of providing free medical care for poor communities that had few medical resources. The term “public health nurse” was first used in connection with her clinic. Her nurse shop—which added dozens of staff—became the Henry Street Settlement, which exists today and annually aids about 50,000 low-income New York residents, with health care being but one of its many social services. In addition to this local triumph, Wald partnered Henry Street with a major insurance company, which inspired countless other insurance companies to embark on social service projects. She was also a founding member of the NAACP, and hosted the group’s founding meeting at Henry Street. A female leader at a time when few women held leadership roles in America, Wald was a relentless activist in concretely improving the lives of the working poor. She was also a co-founder in the early 1900’s of the National Child Labor Committee, a group that was chartered by Congress in 1907 and, to this day, exposes and fights cases of child labor in the United States.