Jewish Nobel Prize Winners

At least 178 Jews and persons of half- or three-quarters-Jewish ancestry have been awarded the Nobel Prize,¹ accounting for 23% of all individual recipients worldwide between 1901 and 2008, and constituting 37% of all US recipients² during the same period. In the scientific research fields of Chemistry, Economics, Medicine, and Physics, the corresponding world and US percentages are 27% and 40%, respectively. (Jews currently make up approximately 0.25% of the world's population and 2% of the US population.)

Chemistry (30 prize winners, 20% of world total, 28% of US total)
Economics (26 prize winners, 42% of world total, 56% of US total)
Literature (13 prize winners, 12% of world total, 27% of US total)
Peace (9 prize winners, 9% of world total, 10% of US total)³
Physics (47 prize winners, 26% of world total, 37% of US total)
Physiology or Medicine (53 prize winners, 28% of world total, 41% of US total)

See also data on "other Nobels":

Jewish Recipients of the Kyoto Prize (26% of recipients)
Jewish Recipients of the Wolf Foundation Prize (34% of recipients)
Jewish Recipients of the US National Medal of Science (170 recipients, 38% of total)

NOTES
1. This enumeration constitutes an update and an expansion of the information on Jewish Nobel Prize winners contained in the 1997 CD ROM edition of the Encyclopaedia Judaica (EJ97), from which 117 of the names listed here were obtained. (This source was listed by the Library Journal as one of its "Top 50 Reference Works of the Millennium.") Nearly all of the additional entries (as well as some of those obtained from EJ97) are accompanied by explanatory footnotes. Approximately 15% of those listed (and about 10% of the Americans listed) are, or were, of half-Jewish descent.
2. Defined as those recipients with US nationality at the time of award.
3. Percentages are based on awards to individuals only, i.e., the computation excludes awards to organizations. Five of the twenty organizations awarded Nobel Peace Prizes were, however, founded or (in one case) co-founded principally by Jews or people of half-Jewish descent. For details, see Jewish Winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.