We are so wrapped up with our everyday lives and problems that we never step back and appreciate how good living is today. No matter how bad your life seems today, it is a whole lot better than when we used to live in caves! The life style we enjoy today was created by thousands of generations of human beings who wanted to make things better. You do not know who those people were; you do not care who they were. More important, you do not honestly respect their contribution to the life which you enjoy.

Who did what, when and where is just history, and almost everybody hated history class. You appreciate your car, electricity, and the clothes that you wear, but you do not appreciate the people who made them possible. More important, you do not appreciate the fact that aside from two arms and two legs, those people were different from you. They had different ethnic and racial heritage as well as different religious backgrounds.

Throughout the history of mankind, people have not trusted the stranger. That distrust has evolved into disrespect for “someone who is not like me” – for someone who does not agree with me. You do not have to like or agree with anyone else, but you do have to respect the fact that they are human beings who want a decent life just like you do.

This website was created to help you understand that you have no idea of how much Jews have contributed to the life which you enjoy. Once you appreciate that fact, it is easy to realize that you do not know anything about the contributions made by other people either.

We need many other similar websites illustrating what other ethnic and religious groups have contributed to the lives we enjoy. Once those websites have been created, then we can create courses which teach our children respect for what others have contributed to the lives they enjoy, and respect for the ethnic, racial and religious heritage of those other people. Hopefully, someday there will be no more strangers - just acquaintances we don't know as well as others.

Just so that you know that this problem is a lot bigger than just what Jews have contributed to your life, consider:

Blood Transfusions

Dr. Charles Richard Drew researched blood transfusions, and developed improved techniques for blood storage. He developed large-scale blood banks early in World War II which allowed medics to save thousands of American lives during the war.

Millions are alive today thanks to the blood bank which Dr. Drew created. Did you know that he created that medical resource? Do you know that he was African American?

Electric Power

Your home, office, factory, and all public buildings are powered by Alternating Current (AC). You know that Thomas Edison was a brilliant inventor, who used Direct Current (DC) electric power to light homes. You know that George Westinghouse is credited for establishing alternating power for lighting homes. However, Westinghouse’s success was based on the fact that he licensed patents which were granted to Nicolai Tesla who created an alternating current (AC) induction motor and related polyphaser. Did you ever hear of Tesla? He was Serbian and Eastern Orthodox Catholic.

Television

Television is as much a part of your life as food. The TV that your grandparents bought had names like RCA, Emerson, GE, Motorola, Muntz, Philco, Westinghouse, or Zenith, but the picture tube said RCA.

Vladimir Kosmich Zworykin was Russian and he orchestrated the creation of the first commercial television for RCA. Philo Farnsworth invented an image dissector which was a fundamental part of the Television which Zworkin created. Farnsworth was an American Mormon. Did you ever hear about those two?

Atomic Bomb

Everybody knows that we dropped two atomic bombs on Japan to end World War II and save the lives of thousands of American soldiers. Uranium 235 was the fuel for those atomic bombs. Where did it come from? It was produced at K-25, the Gaseous Diffusion Plant (Oak Ridge Tennessee).

The gaseous diffusion process separates U235 from Uranium ore. That diffusion process was created by Chien-Shiung Wu who was a very talented experimental physicist.

Did you know that Madam Wu was a Chinese American?

Entertainer

Wayne Newton was a very popular performer in Las Vegas. Newton became a solo performer in the early 1960s and scored such hits as "Danke Schoen" and "Red Roses for a Blue Lady." For the next several decades, Newton established himself as one of Las Vegas's most popular and highest-paid performers. Did you know that both of his parents had Native American roots — Cherokee on his mother's side and Powhatan on his father's side.

Now go to the Introduction