List of West European Jews
Template:JewsByCountry 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 a Swiss community was only established after emancipation in 1874. However, the vast majority of the population in the Netherlands and a large proportion of the one in Belgium were killed in the Holocaust, and much of the modern Jewish population of these countries (as well as of Switzerland) derives from post-Holocaust arrivals from Eastern Europe. Here is a list of some prominent West European Jews, arranged by country of origin.
Belgium
- Chantal Akerman, director and screenwriter
- Saul Akkemay, columnist and polemic
- Paul Ambach, aka Boogie Boy; concert promotor and Blues-singer
- Zora Arkus-Duntov, Belgian-born father of the Chevrolet Corvette
- Natacha Atlas, Belgian-born singer (Jewish father)
- Lt-General Louis Bernheim, WWI General
- Gérard Blitz, Olympic water polo medallist, co-founder of Club Med
- Jacques Brotchi, neurosurgeon and academic
- Alex De Vries, pianist
- Fred Erdman, Labour politician
- Leopold Flam, philosopher
- Louis Franck, Liberal politician
- Diane von Furstenberg, fashion designer
- Myriam Fuks, singer (Klezmer)
- André Gantman, Liberal politician
- Paul Glansdorff, molecular biologist
- Jean Gol, Liberal politician
- Camille Gutt, finance minister; head of the IMF
- Nico Gunzburg, academic and jurist
- Arno Hintjens, Belgian singer (Jewish maternal grandmother)
- Paul Hymans, Liberal leader; president of the League of Nations
- Henry Kistemaeckers, writer
- Jacques Kluger, music producer
- Jean Kluger, music producer; son of Jacques Kluger
- George Koltanowski, chess player
- Harry Kümel, film director (half-Jewish)
- Samuel Lambert, banker
- Raoul J. Lévy, Belgian-born French film producer
- Marcel Liebman, historian, activist, and academic
- Alfred Löwenstein, financier (Jewish mother)
- Ernest Mandel, German-born Marxist economist and political theorist
- Bob Mendes, 'faction'-thriller author and poet (Jewish father)
- Baron Chaim Perelman, Polish-born philosopher
- Maurits Polak, Flemish movement activist
- Viscount Ilya Prigogine, Russian-born chemist; Nobel Prize Chemistry (1977)
- Maarten Rudelsheim, Flemish movement activist and librarian
- Zahava Seewald, (Yiddish & Ladino) singer and composer
- Henry Spira, Animal Rights activist
- Daniël Sternefeld, conductor and composer
- Elias M. Stein, Belgian-born mathematician
- Maxime Steinberg, historian; specialist in the history of the Shoa in Belgium
- Gilbert Stork, chemist
- Olivier Strelli, fashion designer
- Ida Wasserman, actress
- Sandra Wasserman, tennis player
- Maj-General Ernst E. Wiener, WWII general
- Sam Wiener, Liberal politician and jurist
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)
- Gerald Goldberg, lord mayor of Cork
- Josephine Hart, author (unconfirmed)
- Walter Heitler, physicist
- Chaim Herzog, Israeli president
- Sam Obernik, singer
- Alan Shatter, Fine Gael politician
- Mervyn Taylor, former Irish Labour Party politician
Luxembourg
- Hugo Gernsback, science-fiction pioneer (unconfirmed)
- Emil Hirsch, reform rabbi
- Gabriel Lippmann, French physicist (Luxembourg-born)
- Arno Joseph Mayer, historian
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 Israël 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 (Jewish father)
- 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 were murdered 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
- Sigismond Thalberg, pianist, composer
- Charles Weissmann, biochemist