Of the 965 individual recipients of the Nobel Prize and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences between 1901 and 2025, at least 220 have been Jews or people with at least one Jewish parent, representing 22% of all recipients. Jews constitute only 0.2% of the world's population, meaning their share of winners is 110 times their proportion of the world's population.
Jews have been awarded all six of the Nobel Foundation's awards: Chemistry: 37 (19% of total) Economics: 40 (40% of total) Literature: 17 (14% of total) Peace: 9 (8% of total) Physics: 56 (24% of total) Physiology or Medicine: 61 (26% of total)
Adolf von Baeyer, recipient of the 1905 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, was Jewish on his mother's side and is considered the first Jewish awardee.
Jewish laureates Elie Wiesel and Imre Kertész survived the extermination camps during the Holocaust. François Englert survived by being hidden in orphanages and children's homes. Others, such as Hans Bethe, Walter Kohn, Otto Stern, Albert Einstein, Hans Krebs and Martin Karplus, fled Nazi Germany to avoid persecution. Still others, including Rita Levi-Montalcini, Herbert Hauptman, Robert Furchgott, Arthur Kornberg, and Jerome Karle, experienced significant antisemitism in their careers.
Arthur Ashkin, a 96-year-old American Jew, was, at the time of his award, the oldest person to receive a Nobel Prize.
Chemistry Year Laureate Country Rationale 1905 Adolf von Baeyer Germany "in recognition of his services in the advancement of organic chemistry and the chemical industry, through his work on organic dyes and hydroaromatic compounds" 1906 Henri MoissanFeuer, Lewis Samuel (1995). Varieties of Scientific Experience: Emotive Aims in Scientific Hypotheses (citing Encyclopaedia Judaica). Transaction Publishers. p. 402. France "[for his] investigation and isolation of the element fluorine, and for [the] electric furnace called after him" 1910 Otto Wallach Germany "[for] his services to organic chemistry and the chemical industry by his pioneer work in the field of alicyclic compounds" 1915 Richard Willstätter Germany "for his researches on plant pigments, especially chlorophyll" 1918 Fritz HaberLeroy, Francis (2003). A Century of Nobel Prizes Recipients: Chemistry, Rhysics, and Medicine. CRC Press. p. 28. Germany "for the synthesis of ammonia from its elements" 1943 George de Hevesy Hungary "for his work on the use of isotopes as tracers in the study of chemical processes" 1961 Melvin Calvin United States "for his research on the carbon dioxide assimilation in plants" 1962 Max Perutz United Kingdom / Austria "for their studies of the structures of globular proteins" 1972 Christian B. Anfinsen United States "for his work on ribonuclease, especially concerning the connection between the amino acid sequence and the biologically active conformation" William Howard Stein "for their contribution to the understanding of the connection between chemical structure and catalytic activity of the active centre of the ribonuclease molecule" 1977 Ilya Prigogine Radu Balescu. "Ilya Prigogine: His Life, His Work", in Stuart Alan Rice (2007). Special volume in memory of Ilya Prigogine, John Wiley and Sons. p. 2. "In the history of science, there are few examples of such a flashing and immense ascent as that of Ilya Prigogine (Fig. 1). The little Russian Jewish immigrant arrived in Brussels at the age of 12..." Magnus Ramage, Karen Shipp (2009). Systems Thinkers. Springer. p. 277. "Prigogine was born in January 1917 in Moscow... His family 'had a difficult relationship with the new regime' (Prigogine 1977), being both Jewish and merchants... Jean Maruani, Roland Lefebvre, Erkki Brändas (eds.) (2003). Advanced Topics in Theoretical Chemical Physics, Springer, p. xv. "Ilya Prigogine was born on January 25, 1917, in Moscow, Russia, the second boy in a middle-class, Jewish family." Russia / Belgium "for his contributions to non-equilibrium thermodynamics, particularly the theory of dissipative structures" 1979 Herbert C. BrownHerbert C. Brown, "Herbert C. Brown", in Tore Frängsmyr, Sture Forsén (1993). Chemistry, 1971–1980. World Scientific. p. 337. "My parents... came to London in 1908 as part of the vast Jewish immigration in the early part of this century." United States / United Kingdom "for their development of the use of boron- and phosphorus-containing compounds, respectively, into important reagents in organic synthesis" 1980 Paul Berg United States "for his fundamental studies of the biochemistry of nucleic acids, with particular regard to recombinant-DNA" Walter Gilbert "for their contributions concerning the determination of base sequences in nucleic acids" 1981 Roald Hoffmann United States / Poland / Ukraine"for their theories, developed independently, concerning the course of chemical reactions" 1982 Aaron Klug United Kingdom / South Africa / Lithuania "for his development of crystallographic electron microscopy and his structural elucidation of biologically important nucleic acid-protein complexes" 1985 Jerome Karle United States "for their outstanding achievements in developing direct methods for the determination of crystal structures" Herbert A. HauptmanBernard S. Schlessinger, June H. Schlessinger (1996). The who's who of Nobel Prize winners, 1901–1995. Oryx Press. p. 101.Samuel Kurinsky. "Jewish Nobel Prize Winners Part I: Chemistry", Hebrew History Federation. 1986 John Polanyi Hungary / Canada / Germany "for his work in chemical kinetics. 1989 Sidney Altman Canada / United States "for their discovery of catalytic properties of RNA" 1992 Rudolph A. Marcus United States / Canada "for his contributions to the theory of electron transfer reactions in chemical systems" 1994 George Andrew Olah United States / Hungary "for his contribution to carbocation chemistry" 1996 Harry Kroto United Kingdom "for the discovery of fullerenes" 1998 Walter KohnLeroy, Francis (2003). A Century of Nobel Prizes Recipients: Chemistry, Rhysics, and Medicine. CRC Press. p. 108. United States / Austria "for his development of the density-functional theory" 2000 Alan J. HeegerFant, Kenne (2006). Alfred Nobel: A Biography. Arcade Publishing. p. 478. "Heeger was born in Sioux City, Iowa to a Jewish family." United States "for the discovery and development of conductive polymers" 2004 Aaron CiechanoverBoaz Arad. "Best Jewish brains head to China. Beijing conference on science and technology to host Israeli, Jewish American Nobel laureates". Yedioth Ahronoth. January 11, 2010. "Three Nobel Prize laureates – Ada Yonath, Aaron Ciechanover, and Avram Hershko – are scheduled to take part in a conference in Beijing this month to present Israel's top achievements in the field of Chemistry. The three will be joined by two Jewish American laureates, Professor Roger Kornberg, a biochemist, and David Gross, who won a physics Nobel." Israel "for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation" Avram Hershko Hungary / Israel Irwin Rose United States 2006 Roger D. Kornberg United States "for his studies of the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription" 2008 Martin Chalfie United States "for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP" 2009 Ada Yonath Israel "for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome" 2011 Dan Shechtman Janice Arnold (2011-10-12). "Nobel laureate is pride of Sherbrooke Jews". Canadian Jewish News. "Shechtman was one of five Jews, including a former Montrealer, the late Ralph Steinman, to receive the prestigious prize for their scientific endeavours... Steinman and Bruce Beutler... won for their groundbreaking work in discoveries on the immune system. Saul Perlmutter and Adam Riess, both American Jews... won the prize in physics." Looks, Elka (2011-10-05). "Jews make strong showing among 2011 Nobel Prize winners". Haaretz. "Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman has made headlines at home for winning the 2011 Nobel Prize in chemistry, but he is not the only Jewish recipient... Ralph Steinman and Bruce Beutler were awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine for their discoveries on the immune system... Saul Perlmutter and Adam G. Riess, both American Jews, are two of the three Nobel Prize in physics winners... So far, five of the seven Nobel Prize winners this year are Jewish..." Israel "for the discovery of quasicrystals" 2012 Robert Lefkowitz"NY Jewish doctor wins Nobel Prize in Chemistry", The Jerusalem Post (Jewish Telegraphic Agency), October 10, 2012. United States "for studies of G-protein-coupled receptors" 2013 Arieh Warshel"Three Jewish American scientists, two of which have Israeli citizenship, won the 2013 Nobel Prize for chemistry", The Jerusalem Post (Jewish Telegraphic Agency), October 19, 2013. Israel "for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems" Michael Levitt United States / United Kingdom / Israel / South Africa "Michael Levitt is a US, British and Israeli citizen", The Jerusalem Post, October 9, 2013."Fellow winner Michael Levitt, a South Africa-born professor, also holds Israeli citizenship.", The Times of Israel, October 9, 2013. Martin Karplus United States / Austria "Martin Karplus, a US and Austrian citizen", The Jerusalem Post, October 9, 2013.2024David BakerUnited States"for computational protein design"2026Henri B. KaganFrance"for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis"
Physiology or Medicine