Known as the "Father of Peeps," Ira "Bob" Born, passed away this week. He was 98 years old. ‘Peeps’, the popular bright colored marshmellow treat has a Jewish history. Here’s some background on the 100-year-old family-owned candy company. 🧵 Russian-Jewish immigrant Sam Born came to the U.S. in December 1909. In 1916, Born was awarded the "key to the city" of San Francisco for inventing a machine that mechanically inserted sticks into lollipops.

Colonel Ilan Ramon passed away 20 years ago today on February 1, 2003, he was an Israeli Air Force fighter pilot and Israel’s first astronaut for NASA. 🧵 Ilan Ramon, Born Ilan Wolferman, was born in Israel on June 20, 1954. Ramon was the space shuttle payload specialist of STS-107, the fatal mission of Columbia, in which he and 6 other crew members were killed in the re-entry accident.

“My father’s Jewish, my mother’s Jewish, I am a Jew.” Daniel Pearl’s final words 21 years ago, February 1, 2002. 🧵 The world has come to know Daniel Pearl as the Wall Street Journal reporter with American and Israeli citizenship who was kidnapped by Pakistani terrorists and murdered in Pakistan in 2002, just four months after 9/11.

Have you ever wondered what the nail polish brand, OPI stands for? It’s likely not what you think.
Suzi Weiss-Fischmann was born in Hungary in 1956 during the Hungarian Revolution to Jewish parents Magda and Laszlo Weiss, both Holocaust survivors. 🧵 The family moved to Israel for a few years and then to New York in 1969 before settling in California in the 1980’s.
In 1982, Suzi started working for her brother-in-law, George Schaeffer, who owned a dental supply company called Odontorium Products, Inc.

Have you ever heard of Johan van Hulst? He was a Dutch teacher that saved an estimated 600 children during the Holocaust.🧵 Van Hulst was the Principal at The Reformed Teachers Training College, which bordered on a Jewish daycare in Amsterdam. Babies and children were passed over a hedge to teachers, held in classrooms, then hidden in baskets and sacks by van Hulst before being smuggled to safety.

At 102, Benjamin Ferencz is the last surviving prosecutor from the Nuremberg trials. Born on March 11, 1920 to a Jewish family in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania, Ben Ferencz moved with his family to America when he was ten months old. 🧵 After graduating Harvard Law in 1943, he enlisted in the @USArmy. As a member of an artillery battalion, Ferencz landed on the beaches of Normandy and fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

Cornelia Arnolda Johanna "Corrie" ten Boom was a Dutch watchmaker. From 1940 to 1944, ten Boom and her family built a secret room in their home as a hiding place for Jews who were fleeing the Nazis. 🧵 “The ten Boom family sheltered as many Jewish refugees as possible until they could be transported away to safety. And by the time an informant tipped off the Gestapo in 1944, they had helped rescue more than 800 people.”

Happy Birthday, DVF! Diane von Fürstenberg (née Diane Simone Michelle Halfin) is a Belgian-American fashion designer best known for her iconic wrap dress design — a timeless staple in women’s fashion. 🧵 Born on December 31, 1946 in Brussels, Diane was raised by Jewish parents who had just survived the Holocaust. Her father Leon was born in Moldova and escaped the Nazis in Switzerland. Her mother Lily was born in Greece and joined the resistance in Belgium, where she was arrested

Chanukah 1932
"It was on a Friday afternoon right before Shabbat that this photo was taken. 🧵 “My grandmother realized that this was a historic photo, and she wrote on the back of the photo that ‘their flag wishes to see the death of Judah, but Judah will always survive, and our light will outlast their flag.’

50 years ago, Sept 5-6, 1972, 11 Israelis were killed in an attack known as the Munich Massacre. During the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, members of a Palestinian terrorist group stormed the Olympic Village, killing 2 members of the Israeli delegation + taking 9 more hostage.🧵 One of the athletes present that day was runner and racewalker Shaul Ladany who, along with 5 others, was able to escape from their apartment. Born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1936, Ladany fled to Budapest with his family after their home was bombed by the Luftwaffe in 1941.