Of Goldie Hawn, Barry Levinson, Leon Uris and 10 Other Things About Jewish Maryland
Made in Maryland: Actress Goldie Hawn went to high school in Silver Spring. Image by Getty Images
1) 238.200 Jews live in Maryland.
2) Born in Portugal, businessman Jacob Lumbrozo became Maryland’s first Jewish resident in 1656.
3) Mendes Cohen, who was immortalized in a recent exhibit at the Jewish Museum of Maryland, helped to defend Ft. McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore in 1846.
4) Starting out his professional career as a peddler, Jacob Epstein went on to form the Baltimore Bargain House and wound up amassing a significant art collection, much of which was donated to the Baltimore Museum of Art.
5) Marvin Mandel served as Maryland’s governor from 1969 to 1979.
6) Baltimore-born scientist and professor Solomon Golomb invented pentominoes.
7) Leon Uris, author of “Exodus” was born in Baltimore in 1924, the son of Eastern European immigrants.
8) Barry Levinson, director of the Baltimore-based films “Diner” and “Avalon” as well as the recent Philip Roth adaptation, “The Humbling,” was born in Baltimore in 1942.
9) In 1959, Baltimore’s Barry and Shirley Glass, an accountant and a psychologist respectively, produced a child named Ira Glass, founder of “This American Life.”
10) The late Baltimore businessman Carroll Rosenbloom was the first owner of the Baltimore Colts, whom he led from 1953 to 1971.
11) Actress Goldie Hawn attended Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring.
12) In 1979, Baltimore-born musician and composer Frank Zappa ran afoul of the Anti-Defamation League when he released the song, “Jewish Princess.”
13) Daniel Torday’s novella “The Sensualist,” winner of the 2012 National Book Award for debut Jewish fiction, was set in Baltimore.
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
