In the midterm elections of November 2018, Jay Robert (“J. B.”) Pritzker was victorious in his quest to become governor of the State of Illinois. Pritzker, 54, defeated the incumbent governor, Bruce Rauner, by a 600,000-vote margin. He was inaugurated on January 14, 2019. In his inaugural speech, he said, “I’ll be committed to helping…
On October 19, 2017, an astronomer at the Haleakala Observatory on the Hawaiian island of Maui discovered what is thought to be an object from interstellar space moving through our Solar System — the first such body ever detected. Astronomers named the object Oumuamua, which means “scout” in Hawaiian. Its exceptionally elongated shape and…
On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion — speaking in Tel Aviv under a portrait of Theodore Herzl, founder of modern Zionism…
Dr. Steven Pinker, a professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard, is recognized as one of the world’s most influential intellectuals. The 64-year-old Pinker is the author of eight mainstream books, including How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Better Angels of Our Nature and — his most recent — Enlightenment Now. He…
The year 2019 marks 30 years since the untimely death of Gilda Radner (June 28, 1946 — May 20, 1989), one of the original cast members of Saturday Night Live. She appeared on the iconic comedy program between 1975 and 1980. On SNL, she created several signature characters — among them “Baba Wawa,” Emily Litella…
Amos Oz (pronounced ah-mos ohz) — who passed away on December 28, 2018 at age 79 — was an internationally renowned Israeli novelist and journalist. During his long and illustrious career, he wrote 40 books that appeared in 45 languages. Oz garnered numerous prestigious awards: the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the French…
In 1949, the newly formed State of Israel launched Operation Magic Carpet, an ambitious project to airlift the Jews of Yemen to the Jewish homeland. Magic Carpet was completed the following year, with almost 50,000 Jews having made the journey. It was a monumental achievement, considering it was carried out in secret and high-capacity jumbo…
To learn about these and many more AmazingJews, watch a compilation put together by JewOfTheWeek.net in 2015 and posted on YouTube.