Nice Jewish Boy Hall of Famers
1. Kirk Douglas
2. Paul Newman
3. Laurence Harvey
4. Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal
5. Bob Dylan
6. Paul Simon
7. Woody Allen
8. Michael Bloomberg
9. Elliot Spitzer
10. James Goldsmith
11. Tony Curtis
12. David Wright Miliband
13. Adam Sandler
14. Dustin Lee Hoffman
15. Ben Stiller
16. Sean Penn
17. Daniel Day-Lewis
18. Harrison Ford
19. Jerry Seinfeld
20. Leonard Nimoy
1.Kirk Douglas. Douglas was born in Amsterdam, New York, to Bryna (née Sanglel) and Herschel “Harry” Danielovitch, a businessman. Douglas’s parents were illiterate Russian Jewish immigrants from Gomel, now in Belarus. His father’s brother, who had emigrated earlier, used the surname of Demsky, which Douglas’s family adopted. For a time, Douglas was known as Izzy Demsky, though his name was never legally changed to that.
2.Paul Newman was born in Shaker Heights, Ohio (a suburb of Cleveland), the son of Theresa (née Fetzer or Fetsko; Slovak: Terézia Fecková) and Arthur Samuel Newman, who ran a profitable sporting goods store. Newman’s father was Jewish, the son of immigrants from Poland and Hungary; Newman’s mother, who practiced Christian Science, was born to a Slovak Roman Catholic family at Ptičie (formerly Pticsie) in the former Austria–Hungary (now in Slovakia). Newman had no religion as an adult, but described himself as “a Jew”, stating that “it’s more of a challenge”. Newman’s mother worked in his father’s store, while raising Paul and his brother, Arthur, who later became a producer and production manager.
Newman showed an early interest in the theater, which his mother encouraged. At the age of seven, he made his acting debut, playing the court jester in a school production of Robin Hood. Graduating from Shaker Heights High School in 1943, he briefly attended Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, where he was initiated into the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity.
3. Laurence Harvey
Harvey maintained throughout his life that his birth name was Laruschka Mischa Skikne. However, his legal name was Zvi Mosheh (Hirsh) Skikne and he was called Hirshkeh by his family.[citation needed] He was the youngest of three boys born to Ber “Boris” and Ella Skikne, a Jewish family in the town of Joniškis, Lithuania. At the age of five he emigrated with his family to South Africa where he took on the English name of Harry.
He grew up in Johannesburg, and was in his teens when he served with the entertainment unit of the South African Army during World War II. After moving to London, England, he enrolled in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art where he became known as Larry. After learning his craft at RADA, he began to perform on stage and film, where he adopted the stage name “Laurence Harvey”, taken either from the shop name Harvey Nichols or from Harvey’s Bristol Cream
4.Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal born December 19, 1980 Los Angeles, California, Gyllenhaal was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of film director Stephen Gyllenhaal and film producer and screenwriter Naomi Foner (née Achs).[1] Maggie Gyllenhaal, his sister, is also an actress, and played his sister in the movie Donnie Darko. Gyllenhaal has said that he considers himself “more Jewish than anything else.” Currently dating Reese Witherspoon(SC).
5.Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota)
6.Paul Simon. Simon was born in Newark, New Jersey to Jewish Hungarian parents Belle (died in 2007), an English teacher, and Louis Simon (died in 1995), a college professor, bass player, and dance bandleader who performed under the name “Lee Sims”. His family soon moved to Kew Gardens Hills, Queens in New York City. Simon’s musical career began in Forest Hills High School when he and his friend Art Garfunkel began singing together as a duo, occasionally performing at school dances.
7.Woody Allen was born Allan Stewart Konigsberg, December 1, 1935, Brooklyn, New York. Allen was born and raised in New York City, the son of Nettie (née Cherrie; a bookkeeper at her family’s delicatessen, and Martin Konigsberg, a jewelry engraver and waiter. His family was Jewish and his grandparents were Yiddish- and German-speaking immigrants. Allen has a sister, Letty (born 1943), and was raised in Midwood, Brooklyn. His parents were both born and raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. His childhood, while middle-class, wasn’t particularly happy. His parents didn’t get along, and he had a rocky relationship with his stern, temperamental mother. Allen spoke Yiddish during his early years and, after attending Hebrew school for eight years, went to Public School 99 and to Midwood High School. During that time, he lived in an apartment at 1402 Avenue K, between East 14th and 15th Streets. He was Nicknamed “Red” because of his red hair; he impressed students with his extraordinary talent at card and magic tricks. Though in his films and his comedy persona he has often depicted himself as physically inept and socially unpopular, in fact Woody Allen was a popular student, and an adept baseball and basketball player. He is married to Soon-Yi Previn.
8.Michael Bloomberg Mayor of New York, Billionaire Married (and divorced from) to Susan Brown (English girl from Yorkshire, religion not available). Bloomberg was born to a Jewish family of Russian and Polish descent at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston on February 14, 1942. His father, William Henry Bloomberg, born in Chelsea, Massachusetts on January 19, 1906, was the son of Alexander “Elick” Bloomberg, a Russian Jewish immigrant and a real estate agent. His mother, Charlotte (Rubens) Bloomberg, born January 3, 1909 in New Jersey, was the daughter of a Russian immigrant and a New Jersey-born mother. She is still alive and reported to be in very good health for her age. The family lived in the Boston neighborhood of Allston until Bloomberg was two years old; they subsequently moved to Atherton Road, in Brookline, Massachusetts for the next two years, and finally settled in Medford, Massachusetts, a Boston suburb, where Bloomberg lived until after he graduated college. Bloomberg attended Johns Hopkins University, where he joined Phi Kappa Psi, and graduated in 1964 with a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in electrical engineering. Later he received his Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Harvard Business School. He also achieved the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America.
9.Elliot Spitzer, (Ex-Governor of New York) Multi-millionaire scion of NYC property developer. 54th Governor of New York. In office January 1, 2007 – March 17, 2008. Born June 10, 1959 The Bronx, New York. Nationality American. Residence: Manhattan, New York, Alma mater Princeton University, Harvard Law School. Profession: Attorney. Religion: Jewish, non-practicing. SC ‘girlfriend’ :Ashley Dupree
10.James Goldsmith; Billionaire: “When one marries one’s mistress one creates a vacancy” attributed to JG. His private life involved three wives, innumerable mistresses and eight children, two born in the late 1980s to the last love of his life, the well-connected French journalist Laure de Boulay de la Meurthe. He admitted that his famous remark “when one marries one’s mistress one creates a vacancy” was not original, but nevertheless it was a fair summary of his attitude to women and his behaviour to them.
11.Tony Curtis, (born Bernard Schwartz on June 3, 1925) is an American film actor. He is best known for light comic roles, especially as a musician on the run from gangsters in Some Like It Hot with Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe. He has also played serious dramatic roles, such as an escaped convict in The Defiant Ones, which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Since 1949, he has appeared in more than 100 films and has made frequent television appearances. Curtis was born as Bernard Schwartz in the Bronx, New York, the son of Hungarian Jewish immigrants Helen (née Klein) and Emanuel Schwartz. The family originates from Mátészalka, Hungary. His father was a tailor. The family lived in the back of the tailor shop, his parents in one corner and Curtis and his brothers Julius and Robert in another. Curtis has said, “When I was a child Mom beat me up and was very aggressive and antagonistic.” His mother was later diagnosed with schizophrenia, a mental illness which also affected his brother Robert and led to his institutionalization. When Curtis was eight, he and his younger brother Julius were placed in an orphanage for a month because their parents could not afford to feed them. Four years later, Julius was struck and killed by a truck.
12.David Wright Miliband MP, (born 15 July 1965) is a British politician who is the current Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Member of Parliament for the constituency of South Shields. Born in London, David Miliband is the elder son of Polish-born Marion Kozak and the late Belgian-born Marxist intellectual Ralph Miliband, also a Polish Jew. Both paternal grandparents lived in the Jewish quarter of Warsaw. His paternal grandfather, Samuel, a trained leather worker, left Poland immediately after World War One, settling in Brussels by 1920[3]. His paternal grandmother, Renia (later known as Renée), also moved to Brussels, where she first met Sam, with the couple marrying in 1923[4]. Hitler’s invasion of Belgium in May 1940 as part of the Nazis’ Western Offensive split the Miliband family in half: Ralph and father Samuel fled to England, while Ralph’s mother Renée and baby sister Nan stayed behind for the duration of the war. They were not reunited until 1950. Married, wife’s religion unknown.
13.Adam Richard Sandler, (born September 9, 1966) is an American comedian, actor, musician, screenwriter and film producer. After becoming a Saturday Night Live cast member, he went on to star in several Hollywood feature films that grossed over US$100 million at the box office.Though he is best known for his comedic roles, such as in the films Billy Madison (1995), Happy Gilmore (1996), Big Daddy (1999) and Mr. Deeds (2002), he has also had success in romantic and dramatic roles, such as in the films The Wedding Singer (1998), Punch-Drunk Love (2002), Spanglish (2004), Reign Over Me (2007), and Funny People (2009). Adam Sandler was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Judy, a nursery school teacher, and Stanley Sandler, an electrical engineer. Sandler is Jewish. When he was five, his family moved to Manchester, New Hampshire, where he attended Manchester Central High School. He found he was a natural comic, and nurtured his talent while at New York University by performing regularly in clubs and on campuses. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1988.
14.Dustin Lee Hoffman, (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor who has had an active career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. He first drew critical praise for the 1966 Off-Broadway play Eh? for which he won a Theatre World Award and a Drama Desk Award. This was soon followed by his breakout movie role as Ben Braddock in the 1967 film The Graduate. After the success of this film, Hoffman’s career has largely been focused in cinema with only sporadic returns to television and the stage. Some of his more important films are Midnight Cowboy (1969), Little Big Man (1970), Lenny (1974), All the President’s Men (1976), Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), Tootsie (1982), Rain Man (1988), Hook (1991), Sleepers (1996), Wag the Dog (1997), Meet The Fockers (2004), and Last Chance Harvey (2008). Hoffman was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Lillian (née Gold) and Harry Hoffman, who worked as a prop supervisor/set decorator at Columbia Pictures before becoming a furniture salesman. Hoffman was named after stage and silent screen actor Dustin Farnum. Hoffman is from a Jewish family, although he did not have a religious upbringing. He graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1955. He enrolled at Santa Monica College with the intention of studying medicine but left after a year to join the Pasadena Playhouse
17. Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis (born 29 April 1957) is an English actor with British and Irish citizenship. He is known as one of the most selective actors in the film industry, having starred in only four films since 1997, with as many as five years between roles. He is a method actor, known for his constant devotion to and research of his roles. Often, he will remain completely in character for the duration of the shooting schedule of his films. Day-Lewis was born in London, the son of actress Jill Balcon and the Irish born Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis. His mother was of Baltic Jewish descent, the daughter of Sir Michael Balcon, who was the former head of Ealing Studios. Two years after his birth in London, the Day-Lewis family moved to Croom’s Hill, Greenwich, where Daniel grew up along with his older sister, Tamasin Day-Lewis, who later became a documentary filmmaker and television chef. Cecil Day-Lewis was already 53 years old at the time of his son’s birth, and seemed to take little interest in his children. Following frequent health problems, he died when Day-Lewis was 15, leaving him feeling unsettled about his lack of emotion, and regretted not having been closer to his father. Living in Greenwich, Day-Lewis found himself among tough South London kids and being Jewish and “posh”, he was often bullied. He mastered the local accent and mannerisms and credits that with being his first convincing performances. Later in life, he was known to speak of himself as very much a disorderly character in his younger years, often in trouble for shoplifting and other petty crimes.
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