Of Barbie, Western Shirts, Simon Guggenheim and 8 Other Facts About Jewish Colorado
Colorado, Barbie! Born in Denver in 1916, Ruth Handler co-founded Mattel and helped to design the Barbie doll. Image by Mattel
1) Colorado is home to approximately 92,000 Jews representing 1.8% of the population.
2) Denver clothing CEO Jack Weil was credited with the idea of putting snaps on Western-style shirts.
3) Born in Philadaelphia, Simon Guggenheim served for one term as a Colorado U.S. Senator from 1907-1913.
4) Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright spent much of her teens in Denver.
5) The first Jews came to Colorado in the 1850’s, inspired by the discovery of gold at Pike’s Peak.
6) Wolfe Londoner served as Denver’s mayor from 1889-91.
7) Born Ruth Marianna Mosko in Denver in 1916, Ruth Handler, along with her husband Elliot Handler, co-founded Mattel and helped to design the Barbie doll.
8) Naropa University in Boulder is home to the Allen Ginsberg Library.
9) In early 2013, swastikas were painted on the B’nai Chaim synagogue in Morrison.
10) In September, 2013, the Pueblo Chieftain ran a purportedly anti-Semitic political ad that depicted Michael Bloomberg as a puppetmaster.
11) Champion U.S. figure skater Max Aaron attended college at Pikes Peak Community College and the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
