list of west european jews

Apart from France, established Jewish populations exist in the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland. With the original medieval populations wiped out by the Black Death and the pogroms that followed it, the current Dutch and Belgian communities originate in the Jewish expulsion from Spain and Portugal, while most of the Swiss community arrived after emancipation in 1874. Here is a list of some prominent West European Jews, arranged by country of origin.

Belgium

Chantal Akerman, director
Zora Arkus-Duntov, father of the Chevrolet Corvette (Belgian-born)
Natacha Atlas, singer (Jewish father; Belgian-born)
Lt-General Louis Bernheim, WWI General
Grard Blitz, Olympic water polo medallist, co-founder of Club Med
Diane von Furstenberg, fashion designer
Camille Gutt, finance minister; head of the IMF
Paul Hymans, liberal leader; president of the League of Nations
George Koltanowski, chess player
Claude Lvi-Strauss, anthropologist (Belgian-born)
Alfred Lowenstein, financier (Jewish mother)
Ilya Prigogine, chemist, Nobel Prize (1977)
Henry Spira, animal rights activist
Elias M. Stein, mathematician (Belgian-born)
Gilbert Stork, chemist
Olivier Strelli, fashion designer

Ireland

Henri Bergson, philosopher (Anglo-Irish mother)
John Desmond Bernal, molecular biologist (Jewish father)
Agnes Bernelle, entertainer
Robert & Ben Briscoe, lord mayors of Dublin
Daniel Day Lewis, actor (Jewish mother)
Josephine Hart, author (unconfirmed)
Walter Heitler, physicist
Chaim Herzog, Israeli president
Sam Obernik, singer

Luxembourg

Hugo Gernsback, science-fiction pioneer (unconfirmed)
Gabriel Lippmann, French physicist (Luxembourg-born)

Monaco

Franz Schreker, composer (Jewish father)

Netherlands

Tobias Asser, jurist, Nobel Peace Prize (1911)
Alfred Ayer, philosopher (Dutch mother)
Frieda Belinfante, conductor (Jewish father)
Carina Benninga, field hockey player, Olympic flag bearer
Bart Berman, pianist (Jewish mother)
Sarah Bernhardt, actress (Dutch Jewish single mother)
Job Cohen, mayor of Amsterdam
Anne Frank, diarist
Samuel Gompers, labor union leader (Dutch parents)
Samuel Goudsmit, physicist
Jacob Isral de Haan, poet
Etty Hillesum, writer
Xaviera Hollander, writer (Jewish father)
Hendrik S. Houthakker, economist
Izaak Kolthoff, chemist
Leo Lionni, illustrator (Jewish father)
Karl Marx, social theorist (Dutch mother)
Harry Mulisch, author (Jewish mother)
Abraham Pais, historian of science
David Ricardo, economist (Dutch parents)
Tom Okker, tennis player
Samuel Sarphati, physician, city planner
Leo Smit, composer
Baruch Spinoza, philosopher
Sjaak Swart, Ajax footballer (Jewish father)

5 out of the 12 members of the 1928 Olympics Dutch Women's Gymnastics Team – the first ever women's gymnastics gold medalists – were Jewish, as was one of the two coaches. All but one of the six perished in the Holocaust.

Switzerland

Jeff Agoos, US soccer international
Ernest Bloch, composer
Felix Bloch, physicist, Nobel Prize (1952)
Alain de Botton, writer
John M. Brunswick, founder of the Brunswick Corporation
Albert Cohen, novelist
Arthur Cohn, film producer
Ruth Dreifuss, Swiss president (1999)
Camille & Henry Dreyfus, inventors of Celanese
Al Dubin, lyricist
Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel Prize (1921)
Edmond Fischer, biochemist, Nobel Prize (1992) (Jewish father)
Robert Frank, photographer
Meyer Guggenheim, businessman
Jeanne Hersch, philosopher
Viktor Korchnoi, chess player (Jewish mother)
Mathilde Krim, AIDS researcher (convert)
Meret Oppenheim, surrealist artist
Rachel, stage actress (Swiss-born)
Tadeus Reichstein, chemist, Nobel Prize (1950)
Edmond Safra, banker
Jean Starobinski, literary critic
Charles Weissmann, biochemist