Some People Did Something

This morning being Sunday, and we being Jews, my husband and I splurged and had bagels with lox and cream cheese (and onions, tomatoes and capers) for breakfast. I say "splurged" because lox is pretty damn expensive so it's a once-in-a-while thing. Anyway, you can thank the Jews in Krakow, Poland for inventing bagels in 1610, which have since become a diet staple enjoyed by people the world over, maybe even people who wear hijabs.

Besides bagels, Jews have invented or are responsible for the existence of so many things we all need, love and/or use. As Ilhan Omar might put it, "Some people did something." A few of the somethings are listed below:

Blue Jeans, Lipstick, Ballpoint Pens, Contraceptives, Instant Coffee, the TV Remote Control, Traffic Lights, Scotchguard, Flexistraws, Genetic Engineering, Virtual Reality, Hollywood movies, the Sit-Com, Comic Books, the Long-Playing Record, Woodstock Music Festival, Videotape, Color TV, Instant Photography, Holography, Psychoanalysis, Cheesecake, Cafeterias, Discount Stores, Pawn Shops, Shopping Carts, Prozac, Valium, the Polio Vaccine, Radiation, Chemotherapy, the Artificial Kidney Dialysis machine, the Defibrillator, the Cardiac Pacemaker, Vaccination against “Hepatitis B” virus, the Vaccinating Needle, Laser Technology, Google, FAX machines, the Microphone, the Gramophone, the Microprocessing Chip, Optical Fiber Cable, Cellular Technology, the Videotape Recorder, Facebook, Scale Model Electric Trains, the Pager, the Walkie-talkie, Refrigerated Railroad Cars (likely inspired by the stiflingly hot trains carrying Jews to death camps during the Holocaust), High-vacuum Electron Tubes, the Incandescent Lamp, Kodachrome Film, the Blimp, the Adding Machine and Stainless Steel, to name but a few. 

To be fair, the Arabs have also given us some good stuff: Where would we be without the harp, lyre, zither, drum, tambourine, flute, oboe and reed instruments? I hate to even think about it.