Tag Archives: Presidential Medal of Freedom

Jew of the Week: Bob Dylan

First Musician to Win a Nobel Prize

Bob Dylan in 1963

Robert Allen Shabbatai Zisl Zimmerman (b. 1941) was born in Minnesota, the grandchild of Ukrainian- and Lithuanian-Jewish immigrants. Listening to the radio as a child, Zimmerman fell in love with music. In high school, he formed a number of bands, mostly doing covers of Elvis Presley. While studying at the University of Minnesota, Zimmerman regularly performed at clubs and coffeehouses near the campus, introducing himself as “Bob Dylan” (after the poet, Dylan Thomas). He soon dropped out of school and moved to New York City. It only took about a year for him to get signed by Columbia Records. Though his first album didn’t do very well, and he was nearly dropped from the record label, Dylan’s second album fared much better. With this album, Dylan showed that he was not only a musician and songwriter, but a talented poet as well. The Beatles described his music as “incredibly original and wonderful”. By 1963, Dylan was tremendously popular, and had become an important part of the civil rights movement, too. He went on to produce an unbelievable 37 albums (so far), selling 120 million copies. His “Like a Rolling Stone” was listed as the greatest song of all time on multiple occasions, and his hand-written lyrics for this song recently sold at an auction for a record $2 million. His 2009 album made him the oldest artist ever to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 chart. Since 1988, Dylan has been on a “Never Ending Tour”, consistently performing around 100 concerts every year, and continuing to perform regularly to this day. Dylan also wrote a novel, published six books of his drawings and paintings, as well as a bestselling autobiography that was nominated for the National Book Award. He has won twelve Grammy Awards, an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Last week, it was announced that he received the Nobel Prize for Literature – the first musician to do so. It has been said that Dylan inspired countless musicians “from Mick Jagger to Eminem”, while President Obama once admitted that “There is not a bigger giant in the history of American music.” TIME Magazine placed him on the list of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th century. Many have argued that Dylan’s lyrics should be studied in schools, and indeed, courses on Bob Dylan are now offered at a number of universities around the world.

Chag Sukkot Sameach!

Words of the Week

Most people worry about their own bellies, and other people’s souls, when we all ought to be worried about our own souls, and other people’s bellies.
– Rabbi Israel Salanter

Bob Dylan at his son Jesse’s bar mitzvah at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, 1983

Jew of the Week: Shimon Peres

A young Shimon Peres with his wife Sonia

Szymon Perski (1923-2016) was born in the shtetl of Vishnyeva (then part of Poland, now in Belarus) to a wealthy Russian-Jewish family. He was the great-great-grandson of the famed Rabbi Chaim Volozhin, and was greatly influenced by his own grandfather, Rabbi Zvi Meltzer. At the young age of 11, Perski’s family moved to Tel Aviv and Hebraized their last name to Peres. (Their entire extended family back in Vishnyeva would later perish in the Holocaust). After finishing his schooling, young Shimon went to live on a kibbutz working as a dairy farmer and shepherd before co-founding his own kibbutz. He was soon elected secretary of a Labor Zionist youth organization. From there, he joined the Mapai party, whose leader David Ben-Gurion took a personal interest in him. At 21, Peres was imprisoned for two weeks by the British for leading an “illegal” expedition into the Negev to scout a new place for Jewish settlement. In 1947, now married, Peres was appointed to the Haganah and put in charge of recruitment and weapons purchases. The following year, he took charge of Israel’s nascent navy. In the 50’s, while part of Israel’s delegation to the US, he studied at NYU and Harvard. At 29, he became the head of Israel’s Ministry of Defence – the youngest person to ever hold the position. He was praised for building strong military alliances with other countries (particularly France, who awarded him their highest distinction, the Legion of Honor), and securing large amounts of modern weapons that propelled Israel into a regional powerhouse. He also helped establish the crucial Dimona nuclear reactor. In 1959, Peres was elected to the Knesset. At one time or another, he served as Minister of Immigrant Absorption, Minister of Transportation, Minister of Defence, Foreign Minister, Minister of Finance, and Information Minister. In 1984, Peres was elected Israel’s prime minister, and in 2007, Israel’s president. Among his other major achievements are the 1976 Entebbe rescue operation (which he pushed through the Cabinet), the 1994 peace treaty with Jordan, and his Peres Center for Peace, which has trained over 250 Arab doctors and brought life-saving treatment to thousands of Arab children. Peres was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for his work with the Oslo Accords, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2008, presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012 by Barack Obama, and with the US Congressional Gold Medal in 2014. He was also the author of 11 books. Sadly, following a debilitating stroke, the last of Israel’s founding fathers passed away in his sleep early Wednesday. Dignitaries from around the world are flying in to pay their respects, including past and present heads of state of Germany, France, Canada, Australia, Mexico, and the US – many of whom Peres had guided and advised. President Obama has ordered flags in America to fly at half mast. Despite his age, Peres worked tirelessly until the very last days of his life. He had once said, “Optimists and pessimists die the same way. They just live differently. I prefer to live as an optimist.”

Words of the Week

It’s better to be controversial for the right reasons than to be popular for the wrong reasons.
– Shimon Peres

Jew of the Week: Edwin Land

Say Cheese!

Edwin Land, Inventor of the Polaroid Camera

Edwin Herbert Land (1909-1991) was born in Connecticut, the son of a Russian-Jewish immigrant father. From a young age he loved taking things apart, and dreamed of inventions. He went to Harvard to study chemistry but left after just a few months. Land moved to New York, and there invented a filter that could polarize light. He returned to Harvard and spent three more years there, but once again dropped out, this time to start a company with his physics instructor, who came from a wealthy family and could provide the funds for Land’s work. Land first applied his filter technology to glasses, and invented polarized sunglasses. His technology spread rapidly, and was used in 3D movie glasses, LCD screens, windows, headlights and windshields. As the company grew larger, he renamed it the Polaroid Corporation in 1937. During World War II, Land focused his attention on military technology to assist the war effort. He helped develop some of the earliest night-vision goggles, smart bombs and heat-seeking bombs, as well as the Vectograph, which allows soldiers to identify camouflaged enemy troops. Land’s most famous invention would come after the war, when he put his mind towards making a camera that would generate a photograph immediately. Thus was born the instant camera, also known as a Polaroid camera, and originally called the Land Camera. Madly popular, the camera made Polaroid world-famous, and the “darling of Wall Street”. Land continued to assist the military and the government during the Cold War, spearheading the U2 spy plane, balloon cameras, satellite cameras, and various espionage technology. He was a regular adviser to American presidents. Land remained a scientist his whole life, running experiments daily. A true visionary, when he had an idea he wouldn’t rest until he could materialize it; he would often have to be reminded to eat, and once wore the same clothes for 18 days straight. Land was also a humanist and proponent of social justice, giving priority to hire women and African-Americans in his labs, at a time when it was highly unpopular to do so. He was beloved by the people and the press, won a long list of awards (including the Medal of Freedom), and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. His original polarizer invention was said to be “the most significant invention in the field of optics, certainly within the last generation, probably in the last century.” He finally earned an honourary degree from Harvard in 1957.

Words of the Week

Our young people, for the most part – unless they are geniuses – after a very short time in college give up any hope of being individually great. They plan, instead, to be good. They plan to be effective. They plan to do their job… It has become our habit, therefore, to think that the age of greatness has passed, that the age of the great man is gone… But I submit to you that when in each man the dream of personal greatness dies, democracy loses the real source of its future strength.

– Edwin Land