Nobel Prize winners: the Jewish top 10
ONCE AGAIN, Jewish scientists are among this year’s Nobel laureates.
Barry Barish and Rainer Weiss were two of the three professors awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics, “for decisive contributions to the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) detector and the observation of gravitational waves”.
And Michael Rosbash was one of three winners of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine “for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm.”
Nobel prizes are held in the highest esteem around the world but are viewed with particular pride among the Jewish community. Despite making up just 0.2 per cent of the global population, well over 20 per cent of Nobel prize winners (almost 200 out of around 920 in history) have been Jewish.
Here is the JC’s entirely arbitrary list of the ‘Top 10’ Jewish Nobel laureates.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Physics, 1921
The most famous scientist of the 20th century, Einstein was awarded the Nobel prize “for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect”.
Einstein’s 1905 paper on the subject played a crucial role in the development of quantum theory.
After leaving Germany in 1933, Einstein arranged for more than 1,000 German-Jewish scientists to receive asylum elsewhere. The International Rescue Committee was founded to help people escape Nazi persecution.
A prominent Zionist, Einstein helped establish the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
He was offered the presidency of the state of Israel but turned it down, saying he lacked “the natural aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people and to exercise official functions” — although he described himself as “deeply moved” by the offer.
ERNST BORIS CHAIN Physiology or Medicine, 1945
Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928. But it was Ernst Chain, together with Howard Florey, who discovered how it could be used as a drug to prevent disease, as well as working out its chemical composition.
The three men were jointly awarded the Nobel prize in 1945 for their efforts.
Born in Germany, where he received his initial university degree, Chain fled in 1933 as the Nazis came to power, arriving in London with just £10 in his pocket. He became a naturalised British citizen in 1939. It was not until after the war that he discovered that his mother and sister, who had remained in Germany, had perished.
A committed Zionist, Sir Ernst, as he became, would later sit on the board of governors at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science.
It is estimated that his work, together with that of Florey and Fleming, has saved more than 200 million lives to date.
HENRY KISSINGER
Peace, 1973
One of America’s most eminent but controversial statesmen, Henry Kissinger served as Secretary of State to US Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
Born in Germany, his family fled the Nazis in 1938, ending up in America.
He played a key role in attempting to negotiate a settlement in the Vietnam War, the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and the Yom Kippur War.
He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 for his work on the Paris Peace Accords between the US and North Vietnam. Kissinger did not attend the ceremony and gave his prize money to charity. He also offered to return his medal in 1975, when the fall of South Vietnam showed how his peace negotiations had failed.
MILTON FRIEDMAN Economics, 1976
One of the most influential economists of the 20th century, Milton Friedman espoused the concept of a freemarket economic system.
A leader of the “monetarist” school of economics, he argued against the ideas of John Maynard Keynes, who had called for increased use of fiscal and monetary policies by governments to try and stem the negative effects of recessions.
His citation praised his “achievements in the fields of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilisation policy.”
ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER Literature, 1978
One of the greatest Yiddish writers of all time, Isaac Bashevis Singer grew up in Poland, moving to the US in 1935.
He achieved widespread fame through his depiction of pre-war Eastern European life, both in full-length novels and short-story collections. A number of his works have been adapted for cinema, most famously Yentl 1983, starring Barbra Streisand.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize “for his impassioned narrative art which, with roots in a Polish-Jewish cultural tradition, brings universal human conditions to life”.
RITA LEVI-MONTALCINI Physiology or Medicine, 1986
Rita Levi-Montalcini was born in Italy in 1909. She studied neurobiology at university and became an academic, only to lose her position in 1938 after Mussolini’s Manifesto of Race barred Jews from holding university positions.
She and her colleague Stanley Cohen were jointly awarded the Nobel in 1986. Despite Italy having only a small Jewish community – fewer than 50,000 out of tens of millions, she was the fourth Jewish Italian to become a Nobel laureate (the previous three being Emilio Segrè, Salvador Luria and Franco Modigliani.)
ELIE WIESEL
Peace, 1986
Elie Wiesel wrote 57 books, of which the most renowned is Night, in which he described his experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. For a decade afterwards, he refused to discuss what he went through in the Shoah. It was
only after being urged to do so by Francois Mauriac, the 1952 Nobel Literature Laureate, that he put pen to paper.
He was awarded the Peace Prize in 1986, with the committee lauding him as “one of the most important spiritual leaders and guides in an age when violence, repression and racism continue to characterise the world.”
He was especially concerned with victims of the apartheid regime in South Africa, trapped Jews in Ethiopia and the Soviet Union, victims of the genocide in Darfur and Bosnia, and the Kurds.
NADINE GORDIMER
Literature, 1991
Nadine Gordimer was more than a South African author — she was seen as the conscience of a nation in the grip of apartheid. Born to Jewish parents in South Africa, she became a key anti-apartheid activist, helping Nelson Mandela edit his speech at the Rivonia Trial in the early 1960s.
She continued her activism throughout the ’70s and ’80s, helping to hide African National Congress leaders hunted by the government. A number of her books, including A World of Strangers and Burger’s Daughter, were censored by the government.
When Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990, she was one of the first people he asked to see.
The Nobel committee noted that “her magnificent epic writing has — in the words of Alfred Nobel — been of very great benefit to humanity”. YITZHAK RABIN
Peace, 1994
Rabin was born in the then British Mandate Palestine in 1922. In 1941, he joined the Palmach, the elite force of the paramilitary Haganah, rising to become its Chief Operations Officer, and later becoming Chief of Staff of the IDF.
After retiring from the army in 1968, he served as Israel’s ambassador to the USA for five years, before briefly serving as Minister of Labour in Golda Meir’s government. He succeeded Meir as Prime Minister in 1974 but resigned in 1977 after he and his wife were found to have held a foreign bank account.
He remained active in politics, serving as Minister for Defence before becoming Prime Minister again in 1992. During his second term, Rabin oversaw the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as signing a peace treaty with Jordan in 1994. His Nobel prize was awarded for his work on the Oslo Accords, shared with Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres.
In November 1994. Rabin was murdered in Tel Aviv by Yigal Amir, a rightwing extremist, who opposed the Oslo Accords.
BOB DYLAN
Literature, 2016
Even for such a renowned wordsmith as Dylan, the announcement that he had won the Nobel Prize for literature came as a surprise. He is the first musician to win the award.
Born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Minnesota, the singer and poet would go on to sell over 100 million records, and achieve global fame with songs
such as Blowin in the Wind, The Times They Are A’Changin Like a Rolling Stone. Dylan didn’t turn up for the official Nobel ceremony — he was eventually presented with his award at a private function.