Of Starbucks, Courtney Love and 8 Other Things About (Jewish) Washington
Living Treasure: Born in Tacoma, artist Dale Chihuly was named a “national living treasure” by George H.W. Bush. Image by Getty Images
1) 46,000 Jews live in Washington.
2) Edward Salomon became Washington’s only Jewish governor in 1870.
3) Elected in 1875, Bailey Gatzert became the first (and so far only) Jewish mayor of Seattle.
4) Washington’s first synagogue, Temple Emanu-El, was founded in Spokane in 1892.
5) Seattle’s Orthodox population is centered around the neighborhood of Seward Park.
6) After New York and Los Angeles, Seattle has the largest Sephardic population in the country.
7) Brooklyn-born Howard Schultz went on to become CEO of Starbucks in Seattle. He also co-owned the Seattle Supersonics until 2006.
8) Hole lead singer Courtney Love, who lived in Seattle with her husband Kurt Cobain, has claimed to be “five-eighths Jewish.”
9) Born in Tacoma, artist Dale Chihuly — who lived on a kibbutz in Israel in the early 1960’s — was named a “national living treasure” by George H.W. Bush.
10) Washington has the country’s highest percentage of people who identify as “non-religious.”
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.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
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 the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
