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Jewish American Heritage Month

Jewish American Heritage Month

Black History Month with black background, red, green, and yellow colors.

May is Jewish American Heritage Month – On April 20, 2006, President George W. Bush proclaimed that May would be Jewish American Heritage Month. The announcement was the crowning achievement in an effort by the Jewish Museum of Florida and South Florida Jewish community leaders that resulted in resolutions introduced by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida and Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania urging the president to proclaim a month that would recognize the more than 350-year history of Jewish contributions to American culture. The resolutions passed unanimously, first in the House of Representatives in December 2005 and later in the Senate in February 2006.

The month of May was chosen due to the highly successful celebration of the 350th Anniversary of American Jewish History in May 2004, which was organized by the Commission for Commemorating 350 Years of American Jewish History. This coalition was composed of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, the American Jewish Historical Society, the Library of Congress and the National Archives and Records Administration. (Library of Congress: About Jewish Heritage Month)

Famous People in Jewish American History

Ruth Bader Ginsberg

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

On August 3, 1993, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was confirmed by the Senate in a vote of 96 to 3, becoming the 107th Supreme Court justice, its second female jurist, and the first justice to be named by a Democratic president since Lyndon B. Johnson.
Full bio

Photo Credit: Supreme Court of the United States, Photographer: Steve Petteway, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan was the first and most significant singer-songwriter to emerge from the folk music scene, inspiring a whole generation of folk (and later rock) artists to explore the vast potential of songwriting in matters socially conscious, personal, spiritual, philosophical and intellectual.
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Photo Credit: American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan at the Savoy Hotel in London, during a British tour in April 1965. Popperfoto/Getty Images.

Judith A. Resnick

Judith Resnik

The astronaut Judith A. Resnik (1949-1986) became the second American woman in space in 1984, on the maiden flight of the orbiter Discovery. She logged 145 hours in space on that mission, at what should have been the beginning of a promising career. But on January 28, 1986, only seconds after liftoff during her second mission, Resnik died in the tragic explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.
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Photo Credit: Resnick, Judith, photograph. AP/Wide World Photos

Steven Spielberg

Motion picture producer, director, and writer Steven Spielberg, creator of such immensely popular films as Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, is considered one of the most gifted and successful filmmakers of all time.
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Photo Credits: Director Steven Spielberg in the press room at the 81st Academy Awards at The Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California, on February 22, 2009. Dan MacMedan/WireImage.

Judy Blume

Many a young reader has been given a hand through the tough adolescent years with the help of author Judy Blume, known for her realistic portrayals of pre-teen and teenage characters and the issues they face growing up in modern, middle-class America. With books such as Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Blubber, and more.
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Photo Credit: Portrait of Judy Blume at the premiere of the film "Tiger Eyes" at the AMC Empire Theater in New York, New York, on June 7, 2013. © Robin Marchant/Getty Images

Jonas Salk

Jonas Salk was one of the United States's best-known microbiologists, chiefly celebrated for his discovery of the polio vaccine. In 1960, he founded the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California.
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Photo Credit: SAS Scandinavian Airlines, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Aly Raisman

Aly Raisman

Aly Raisman is a two-time Olympic gymnast. At the Olympic Games in 2012, Raisman earned a gold medal in the floor exercise and a bronze medal for her work on the balance beam.
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Photo Credit:  © UPI/Phil McCarten

Henry Winkler

Henry Winkler

Henry Winkler became a television star in the 1970s with his role as "The Fonz" on the television series Happy Days. Winkler has since acted, directed, and produced in film and television. Hank (like Winkler) also has a learning disability called dyslexia that makes it difficult for him to read, write, and spell.
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Photo Credit: Jim Ruymen/UPI

Emma Lazarus

Emma Lazarus

Emma Lazarus (1849-1887), American poet, is best known as a spokesperson for the Jewish people. Her faith in America as a haven for all the downtrodden peoples of the world is expressed in her poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty: “...Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...”
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Stan Lee

American writer, editor, and producer Stan Lee (1922-2018) redefined the world of the comic book with realistic characters that combined typical human emotions and traits with their super powers. Lee created or co-created most of the characters that populated the comics published by the Marvel firm in the 1960s.
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Photo Credit: Creator/executive producer Stan Lee arrives at the Los Angeles premiere of "Iron Man 3" at the El Capitan Theatre on April 24, 2013, in Hollywood, California.
© Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage/Getty Images

Bettu Friedan

Betty Friedan

Betty Friedan, the nation's foremost feminist, at the age of 72, was still trying to revolutionize society, decades after her book, The Feminine Mystique, inspired many women to leave their kitchen aprons behind and enter the dress-for-success world of careers. Friedan was trying to dispel what she called "the mystique of age," or society's view of aging as simply a time of depletion and loss.
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Photo Credit: © Time & Life Pictures/DMI/Getty Images

Lenny Kravitz

One of the first rock superstars to emerge at the start of the 1990s, Lenny Kravitz made a name for himself by producing a string of thunderous, hook-laden, multiplatinum albums.
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Photo Credit: Serena Xu-Ning/UPI

Jewish American Heritage eBooks