8 Facts About Jewish Indiana
1. 17,470 Jews live in Indiana, which is 0.3% of the state’s total population. In 1900, 25,000 lived here.
2. Grammy-winning violin player, Joshua Bell, grew up in Bloomington, where his father was a noted psychologist.
3. In 2013, former governor of Indiana and current president of Purdue University, Mitch Daniels tried to block the teaching of books by Jewish historian Howard Zinn in Indiana public schools.
4. Indianapolis native Jake Kaufman won the 6th season of the TV show “The Voice.”
5. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Samuelson was born in Gary.
6. Robert Wise, Academy Award-winning director of ‘The Sound of Music,’ was born in Winchester and grew up in Connersville.
7. The late cellist Janos Starker taught at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University.
8. Film director Sydney Pollack, who also appeared as an actor in the films ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ and ‘Tootsie,’ was born in Lafayette.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
