Until the Holocaust, Jews were a significant part of the population of Eastern Europe. Outside Poland, the largest population was in the European part of the USSR, especially the Ukraine (1.5 million in the 1930s), but major populations also existed in Romania and Czechoslovakia. Here is a list of some prominent East European Jews, arranged by country of origin.

(Note: Baltic and Balkan Jews are on different lists.)

Belarus

• Zhores Alferov , physicist, Nobel Prize (2000) (Jewish mother)
• Menachem Begin, Israeli PM, Nobel Prize (1978)
• Isaac Dov Berkowitz, writer
• Marc Chagall, painter
• Morris Raphael Cohen, philosopher
• David Dubinsky, labor leader
• Simon Dubnow, Jewish historian
• Michel Kikoine, painter
• Pinchus Kremegne, painter
• Seymour Lubetzky, cataloging theorist
• Michael Marks, co-founder of Marks and Spencers
• Louis B. Mayer, co-founder MGM
• Shimon Peres, Israeli PM, Nobel Prize (1994)
• David Pinski, writer
• Ida Rosenthal, founder of Maidenform Brassieres
• David Sarnoff, head of RCA
• Issai Schur, mathematician
• Yitzhak Shamir, Israeli PM
• Chaim Soutine, painter
• Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmology writer
• Lev Vygotsky, psychologist
• Ossip Zadkine, sculptor
• Oscar Zariski, mathematician

Czech Republic

Political figures

• Madeline Albright, U.S. politician (raised Christian)
• Louis Brandeis, U.S. judge (Czech parents)
• Rudolf Slánský, communist politician

Academic figures

• Gerty Cori, biochemist, Nobel Prize (1947)
• Martin Fleischmann, chemist
• Sigmund Freud, psychoanalyst (Czech-born)
• Ernest Gellner, anthropologist
• Edmund Husserl, philosopher (Czech-born)
• Norbert Jokl, linguist
• Karl Kautsky, Marxist theorist
• Hans Kelsen, legal philosopher (Czech-born)
• Carl Koller , introduced local anaesthetics
• Ernest Nagel, philosopher
• Olga Taussky-Todd , mathematician
• Max Wertheimer, Gestalt psychologist

Film and stage

• Milos Forman, director (Jewish father)
• Karl Freund , cinematographer
• Arnost Goldflam , playwright, director
• Hugo Haas , director/actor
• Milos Kopecky , actor (Jewish mother)
• Francis Lederer, actor
• Herbert Lom, actor
• Karel Reisz, director
• Jiri Voskovec , playwright & actor

Musicians

• Guido Adler , musicologist (Czech-born)
• Karel Ancerl, conductor
• Rudolf Friml, composer
• Pavel Haas , composer
• Gideon Klein , composer
• Hans Krasa , composer
• Erich Wolfgang Korngold, film composer
• Gustav Mahler, composer (Czech-born)
• Ignaz Moscheles, pianist & composer
• David Popper, cellist
• Rudolf Serkin, pianist
• Walter Susskind, conductor
• Jaromir Weinberger , composer

Writers and poets

• Max Brod, author and friend of Kafka
• Hermann Grab, writer
• Franz Kafka, novelist
• Egon Erwin Kisch, journalist
• Ivan Klima, writer
• Karl Kraus, writer (Czech-born)
• Tom Stoppard, playwright
• Hermann Ungar, author
• Franz Werfel, writer

Miscellaneous

• Salo Flohr, leading chess player
• Judah Loew, rabbi and Golem-creator
• Wilhelm Steinitz, world chess champion

Moldova

• Gary Bertini, conductor
• William F. Friedman, cryptographer
• Samuel Bronfman, founder of Seagram
• A. N. Frumkin , electrochemist
• Nahum Gutman, painter
• Boris Katz, artificial intelligence researcher
• Lewis Milestone, director
• Lev Simonovich Berg , geographer & zoologist

Romania

see: List of Jewish Romanians

Slovakia

• Joseph Goldberger , discovered cure for pellagra
• John Hertz , founder of Yellow Cab & Hertz (unconfirmed)
• Ján Kadár , film director
• Peter Lorre, actor
• Robert Maxwell, media mogul
• Ivan Reitman, film director
• Arminius Vambery , orientalist
• Gejza Vámoš , writer

Ukraine

Political figures

• Levi Eshkol, Israeli prime minister
• Golda Meir, Israeli prime minister
• Moshe Sharett, Israeli prime minister
• Leon Trotsky, communist revolutionary

Academic figures

• Vladimir Arnold, mathematician (Jewish mother)
• Sergei Bernstein, mathematician
• Herbert C. Brown, chemist, Nobel Prize (1979) (Ukrainian parents)
• Vladimir Drinfeld, mathematician
• Ariel Durant, historian
• Israel M. Gel'fand, mathematician
• Waldemar Haffkine, bacteriologist
• Zellig Harris, linguist
• Leonid Levin, mathematician
• Jacob Rabinow, inventor
• Selman Waksman, biochemist, Nobel Prize (1952)

Film and stage

• Maya Deren, filmmaker
• Mila Kunis, actress
• Anatole Litvak, director
• Yakov Smirnoff, comedian (Jewish mother)
• Lee Strasberg, acting teacher

Musicians

• Simon Barere, pianist
• Shura Cherkassky, pianist
• Mischa Elman, violinist
• Emanuel Feuermann , cellist
• Emil Gilels, pianist
• Jascha Horenstein, conductor
• Vladimir Horowitz, pianist
• Leonid Kogan, violinist
• Nathan Milstein, violinist
• Benno Moiseiwitsch, pianist
• David Oistrakh, violinist
• Igor Oistrakh, violinist (Jewish father)
• Leo Ornstein, composer
• Gregor Piatigorsky, cellist
• Isaac Stern, violinist
• Dimitri Tiomkin, film composer

Writers and poets

• Sholom Aleichem, humorist and author
• Isaac Babel, author
• Hayyim Nahman Bialik, poet
• Ilya Ehrenburg, author
• A.M. Klein , poet
• Lev Kopelev, author and dissident

Miscellaneous

• Nudie Cohen , clothier
• Lew Grade, TV producer
• Morris Lapidus, architect
• Louise Nevelson, sculptor
• Jay Pritzker , founder of Hyatt & philanthropist

Sports

• Sasha Cohen, figure skater (Ukrainian parents)
• Oksana Baiul, figure skater (Olympic gold) (Jewish mother)
• David Bronstein, chess player
• Efim Geller, chess player
• Maria Gorokhovskaya, gymnast (2 Olympic golds, 5 silvers)
• Lenny Krayzelburg, swimmer (3 Olympic golds)
• Valentin Mankin , sailor (3 Olympic golds, 1 silver)
• Fania Melnik , discus thrower (Olympic gold)
• Tamara & Irina Press , sister athletes (5 Olympic golds, 1 silver in total)
• Zhanna Pintusevich-Block, sprinter (World Championship gold)
• Leonid Stein, chess player

See also

• List of Belarusians
• List of Czechs
• List of Moldovans
• List of Romanians
• List of Slovaks
• List of Ukrainians