All too often, we consign the topic of faith to the field of theology and religion, but faith isn’t just about God. It’s about belief. When we place our faith in an idea—about God, about civilization, about existence, even—we give that idea the power to transform us, for better or for worse. Such was the case for Josephine Esther Mentzer, born on this day in 1906 to Hungarian-Jewish immigrants Rose Scholtz and Max Mentzer in Queens, New York. Her parents nicknamed her Eszti, after her mother’s favorite aunt. As a child, Eszti worked alongside her eight siblings at her father’s hardware store, but in high school, she began working for her uncle, a chemist who created and sold beauty products. She quickly became captivated by the science and art of women’s beauty, reasoning that every woman is beautiful, but sometimes just needed the opportunity to show it. She began using [...]

Typically, we associate heroism with bravery and strength, qualities that certainly describe the actions of the first Jewish Congressional Medal of Honor Winner, Private Benjamin Bennett Levy, during the Battle of Glendale just outside Richmond, Virginia on June 30, 1862. A drummer boy in B Company of the 1st New York Infantry, Levy exchanged his broken drum for the rifle of his ill comrade. Shortly thereafter, he saw the color bearer, Charley Mahorn, fall from a bullet wound to the chest. Levy then rescued the flag from capture. Though saving a flag may seem quaint by 21st Century standards, during the Civil War, unit colors remained an essential component of warfare. Soldiers took their directions from the colors; allowing the colors to fall to the enemy meant certain defeat. Thus, rescuing the colors, an impulse drilled into the hearts of every soldier, was as practical as it was symbolic. Heroism, [...]

On this day in 1910, composer Frank Loesser was born to Jewish parents in New York City. His half-brother, Arthur, was a talented concert pianist, and his father was a piano teacher. Frank also had an ear for music and, allegedly, could play the piano by ear at age four. However, he disdained his father’s attempts to educate him in classical composition, as well as other forms of education. He was expelled from high school and later flunked out of the City College of New York. Friends of the family later remarked that they expected Arthur, not Frank, whom they affectionately called the ‘evil of the two Loessers,’ to achieve renown in the musical world. After his father died suddenly in 1926, Loesser was forced to seek work to support his family. He constantly composed while he worked as an author, an editor, and a salesman, but his music began [...]