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 Publisher & CEO 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.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
