About ThankJews.com
Celebrating Jewish contributions to human progress
Our Mission
ThankJews.com documents and celebrates the remarkable Jewish contributions that have profoundly shaped science, medicine, technology, arts, culture, and modern society. Our goal is simple: to help the world recognize, appreciate, and learn from these extraordinary achievements.
"If you appreciate modern life, take a moment to Thank the Jews."
Who is in the directory
A person enters by one of three routes. Each requires an explicit, sourced statement — never a surname, never somebody else's list.
Affiliation
They lived as a Jew or declared themselves Jewish — whether as a religion, a people or a culture.
Conversion
They converted to Judaism.
Descent
They have at least one Jewish parent or grandparent, in whole or in part.
The grandparent test is the line the State of Israel itself draws: the Law of Return, extended in 1970, opens citizenship to anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent. It was set there deliberately — the Nuremberg Laws were broader than any strict religious definition, and it would have been absurd for the refuge to be narrower than the persecution.
Read the full criteria, and what is deliberately excluded →To create a comprehensive, accessible resource that educates people about the profound impact of Jewish innovation on every aspect of modern civilization.
Factual accuracy, positive messaging, universal appeal, and gratitude. We celebrate achievement without politics or defensiveness.
Data-driven documentation from verified sources. Every contribution is backed by reliable references from academic and historical records.
Students, educators, researchers, and curious minds worldwide. Everyone who benefits from modern civilization deserves to know this story.
Jewish people represent approximately 0.2% of the world's population, yet their contributions to human progress are extraordinary and disproportionate:
- 22% of all Nobel Prize laureates
- Founders of Google, Facebook, Oracle, and countless other tech giants
- Pioneers in medicine who developed vaccines, antibiotics, and life-saving treatments
- Revolutionary thinkers in psychology, linguistics, and social sciences
- Cultural icons in film, music, literature, and the arts
This website exists because these achievements deserve recognition. In an era of misinformation and prejudice, facts matter. Understanding matters. Gratitude matters.
Sources & References
Beyond the personal sources of founder Jordan Cohen and years of independent research, every high-stakes fact is cross-checked against verified, authoritative public sources. Among the main references used:
Jinfo.org
Comprehensive database of Jewish achievement across every field
Jewish Encyclopedia
Classic scholarly encyclopedia of Jewish history and biography
Jewish Virtual Library
Scholarly research and documentation
The Nobel Prize
Official Nobel laureate records
Yad Vashem
The World Holocaust Remembrance Center (Jerusalem)
Jewish Women's Archive
Documentation of Jewish women's history and achievement
International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame
Records of Jewish athletes and sporting achievement
The Jewish Chronicle
The world's oldest Jewish newspaper
The Times of Israel
Contemporary reporting on Israel and the Jewish world
Aish
Jewish education, history and heritage
Jewish Book Council
Literary and cultural documentation
Encyclopædia Britannica
Independent biographical and historical verification
Wikipedia & Wikimedia
Cross-referenced biographical data and public-domain imagery
A word from the founder
My name is Jordan Cohen. I am Jewish, French-Moroccan, and a journalist.
Since childhood two things have never left me: admiration for what the Jewish people have given the world, and antisemitism, which I endured a great deal of growing up.
I have always wanted to understand how the two held together. How so small a community could give so much to science, to medicine, to music, to law, to thought, while enduring everywhere and in every age persecution, forced conversion, discrimination, expulsion, dispossession, pogroms and genocide. And how, every time, it stayed faithful to its beliefs, its God, its community, its rites and its values, never ceasing to contribute to the advancement of humanity, and keeping plenty of humour along the way.
This site is my answer. It is not a plea, it is an inventory. Every name, every figure, every date here is sourced, dated and verifiable, and whatever is not does not appear. That is the journalist speaking: against those who prefer rumour, nothing holds better than a fact you can go and check yourself. We celebrate, we do not compare, and we belittle no one.
The 7th of October 2023 was the trigger. As for most Jews around the world, it is probably the most defining event of my lifetime: a pogrom against Jews, filmed and broadcast live. And then came what followed. Part of the world rejoiced. Another part said nothing. Many turned against Jews and against Israel faster than I would have believed possible. Antisemitism has exploded everywhere since.
I wanted to take part in that fight. This is my way of doing it: through gratitude. Because gratitude is a better answer than anger, and it lasts longer. The more the world hates Jews and Israel, the stronger we will be, the more determined, and the more grateful for what was handed down to us.
Am Yisrael Chai.